Each month new articles, book reviews, and other content are added to the Superfactory website. The new content is featured in the free monthly e-newsletter which goes out to 50,000 subscribers worldwide, and we will also post a monthly heads-up on this blog.
New content in December includes:
The featured article is from Dan Markovitz and is titled TPS: Thinking Production System. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.
Teruyuki Minoura of Toyota, and John Shook, co-author of Learning To See and senior advisor in the Lean Enterprise Institute, say that “TPS” should really stand for “Thinking Production System.” In their view, more than anything else, a manager committed to Lean must constantly ask questions: Why do we have parts piled up here? Why is this worker falling behind? Why are there errors in this process? Managers need to think, to ask questions, to find ways to improve the system.
But what do you look for in a business process? What are the signs of waste? How do you spot the problems? When you’re dealing with knowledge workers in an office, critical process inefficiencies aren’t as visible as they are in a factory. Value stream mapping is only part of the answer. You also need to see and eliminate the waste inherent in how people work.
The Other Perspectives section has an article by Don Kivell titled Sustaining Lean: Multiply Your Successes. The following is a brief excerpt, and you can read the entire article here.
For more than 40 years, “Lean Manufacturing” techniques have been achieving outstanding success rates. First, in Japanese plants and now in advanced factories throughout North America, it has proven to be a cost effective and flexible approach to achieving superior customer satisfaction. Many shop floors, however, still look and perform as they did years ago, simply because sustaining the transition to Lean has proven to be a task of monumental proportions.
You can’t go partway with Lean; you have to go all the way. If you don’t marry yourself to 5S concepts, commit to continuous Lean efforts and learn to make tough choices – as needed, on an ongoing basis – you always end up slipping back into the same bad habits.
The featured book for this month is The Lean Product Development Guide by Ron Mascitelli. A short synopsis is below, and you can learn more about the book or order it here.
The Lean Product Development Guidebook describes over two dozen powerful and practical methods for slashing development waste and improving resource utilization, spanning the full spectrum from inception to successful product launch. An integrated methodology for slashing time to market is presented, based on best in class practices gathered from Toyota Motor Company and many other leading firms. This book includes over 150 figures and diagrams, real-world examples and step-by-step instructions.
We continually update the other major sections of the website, including:
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Events Calendar: a listing of lean excellence seminars, workshops, training, and conferences worldwide
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Topic Information: Summaries and resources on over 40 enterprise excellence topics.
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History of Excellence: A growing timeline of notable events that helped shape current-day enterprise excellence
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PowerPoint Presentations: Over 50 downloadable PowerPoint presentations on lean manufacturing, quality, enterprise, and safety concepts.
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Factory Toolbox: Almost 300 downloadable forms, procedure templates, assessments, and tools to help you not reinvent the wheel.
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Tools and Assessments: Downloadable assessment tools.
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Virtual Factory Tours: Web and streaming video tours of over 100 factories.
We are always looking for new articles and other content. Contact us via the Superfactory website if you would like to contribute to our knowledge base.