LIT – Lean Implementation Team

I have spent the last year and a half as a founding member of the Morey Lean Implementation Team, or LIT.  The charter for this team was to gather a group of mid-level key performers from multiple disciplines, educate them in Lean and where the company is headed, and then utilizes them to help spread…

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Seeing the waste – In your face Part 2

Last time I mentioned “Waiting” as the key non-value added waste in most office environments.   If waiting drives you crazy, try thinking about how many people your process has to go through.  It’s amazing, really.  Pick anything from your company – an order from a customer, a purchase order to a vendor, a drawing or…

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What’s In It For Me? – The Top 5 Benefits of Lean

As we move on our lean journey, I find myself often putting myself in the customer’s shoes asking, “If I were the customer, what’s in it for me?” Truly, our lean journey is to make us a better supplier to our customers. To eliminate what causes you pain. To completely change a culture that focuses…

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Learning to Lean into It

Our first foray into Lean was to organize through implementation of 5S (Sort, Simplify, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain).  While it was initially tricky to get everyone used to the idea that a 5S’d area is a happy area, people started seeing immediate benefits both in production and our offices.  When a workspace on the production…

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Walks, Singles, and Doubles

Over the past months, we’ve experienced a strange lesson learned and a word of caution to pass on. We spent a lot of time working towards a high performance culture of continuous improvement.  As part of this, we launched improvements using the “A3” format.  In a nutshell, the A3 format states any improvement project should…

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Value Streams

Earlier this year, we decided to divide up our company into Value Streams.  A quick explanation of a value stream is to say “business unit”.  Essentially, a separate line or section of the business that operates independently of other portions of the business, from the perspective of the products that run down that line. Effectively,…

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Office Andons – We’ve always done it this way…

Previously, I talked about the role of the andon as a function of “Quality at the source”.  We use andons on our manufacturing lines to alert the company to any problems, essentially raising a signal and stopping the production lines. Stopping of production lines is a quick way to raise a lot of attention when…

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Factory Simulation

We’ve just started to have training exercises with members of our different departments to simulate a lean facility versus a traditional manufacturing facility.  The results have not only been eye-opening, but have really helped people understand the benefit of moving to lean. Essentially, we have pulled people together in a mini simulation where they have…

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Seeing the waste – In your face

One of the coolest things of this lean journey is the ability to better discern waste in everyday processes.  Everyone wants to eliminate waste in manufacturing.  It’s the easiest place to do it.  That’s where everything is visible and tangible.  We’ve got guys working like crazy to get 30 seconds out of a test operation…

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Lean Strategies to Cope with a Volitile Supply Chain

We’re currently feeling the effects of the market on our builds and our attempts to go lean.  In the first few months of this year, we have faced the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.  “Orders are increasing – Yes!!!”   “Wait, what do you mean the lead-time for the parts I need has…

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