Examples of Excellence is a weekly feature showcasing examples of operational excellence.  If you have an example you’d like to share, please email it to us.

This week we have one example of a visual scheduling board from a company that has scrapped its shop floor MRP system.  The various processes are in order on the board, and magnets represent basic job information.  The operators have the responsibility to move the magnets, and they can also immediately react if any bottlenecks become visually apparent.  What you don’t see: a webcam is aimed at the board so that the sales department always has access to the latest job status information.  I would add one enhancement that I’ve seen at other companies: the board is laid out to look just like a process flowchart.

Examples of Excellence is a weekly feature showcasing examples of operational excellence.  If you have an example you’d like to share, please email it to us.

This week we bring you a crosstraining board that visually shows where personnel are trained.  Four-quadrant dots are used to show levels and proficiency within each process.  Using this the operators and supervisors can immediately determine who can support various operations when bottlenecks or other disruptions occur.

Note: Links to all of four Japan factory tour posts and the various lessons from those tours can be found here.

This week I'm going out on a limb to show what I hope will become an example of excellence.  Earlier this week I wrote a "Lessons from Japan" on how standing up improves efficiency and speed.  I thought I'd better take my own advice, so over the past couple days I've radically changed my office.  So here is the "before" photo:

And here is the "after":

Am I nuts? Only time will tell.  But I do actually feel more productive!  And yes, I know there are a couple bottles of wine on my desk… when your office is in a region with 130+ wineries within 30 miles, that happens.

Examples of Excellence is a weekly feature showcasing examples of operational excellence.  If you have an example you’d like to share, please email it to us.

This week we have a photo of a board used to prioritize projects by department member.  The project A3’s are arranged in order of priority, so everyone can visually see the status of projects and also where they sit in terms of priority.

Examples of Excellence is a weekly feature showcasing examples of operational excellence.  If you have an example you’d like to share, please email it to us.

This week we have a display that reminds the folks of their 5S improvements, thereby helping sustain the improvement.  Note the spaghetti diagram and before/after photos.

Thanks to a suggestion from several readers, today we’re starting a regular feature for Saturdays: Examples of Excellence.  Each week we’ll show you some example of excellence to help spark the imagination.  On some or perhaps many occasions you may have seen something similar before, but try to think of other ways the example could be applied.

If you have an example you’d like to share, please email it to us.  We’ll give you credit if you’d like, or it can remain anonymous. 

This week’s example: the shadow board.  The magnetic bars hold the tools against tool shadows painted on the wall, making it very easy to see where tools belong and which ones are missing (and apparently a few are!).  Even a tape measure velcro’d onto the wall, and note the clearly-labelled supply bins.  A great part of any 5S program!