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Learning Tools

leanrt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:17:40 CST

E-learning Toolboxes - Link

Competitive Manufacturing

Lean Leadership Home

leanrt — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 21:14:05 CST

Lean leadership is different from the old command and control methods of the past and the application of the tools is not just the case of duplicating exactly what Toyota is doing with their Toyota Production System. Your culture and process are differentand consequently the Lean Production System you develop will be unique as well.

The fundamentals of Lean Philosophy are universal, the lean systems provide a good starting point and the appropriate lean tools should be selected to achieve your business objectives rather than seeing their application as being an end it itself.

Kaizen (continuous improvement) has value even if applied in an opportunistic or ad hoc fashion but it is most effective if used as part of a strategic plan for improvement.

This site has been created as a meeting place and resource for customers of LEAN Rt who we are helping to implement a lean production system either through the Australian Government funded Competitive Manufacturing Certificate Training or Implementation Coaching.

Our vision is to support the long term sustainability of Australian Industry through the move away from traditional manufacturing based on mass production principals to the development of lean production systems based on reducing cost and delivery time and increasing safety and quality.

We want this Wiki to be an opportunity for you to connect with your peers to grow and develop your understanding of how lean philosophies and systems can help your people and your business.

those of you who are further along the road please take this opportunity to share your knowledge
those whose knowledge of lean principals is onlya step ahead of the people you leadin your lean implementation then connect with others who are further along the journey, ask questions and learn more
raise issues that you are having - it is likely that someone else has already faced the same challenges and has found a resolution
invite discussion
and .... I don't know, you tell me how you want this Wiki to helpyou

Lean Philosophy

leanrt — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:20:49 CDT

Lean Manufacturing - or any other type of operation for that matter - is based on a very simple philosophy.

The objective is to remove waste so that the process can produce exactly what the customer wants, when they want it and at the lowest possible cost. Waste is identified and understood differently in lean philosophy to the way it is regarded in traditional mass production.

Lean thinking is systematic and synergistic (the whole is greater than the sum of the parts) while traditional thinking is more compartmentalised and with departments often competing for resources rather than collaborating.

Traditional cost accounting is often to blame for waste (and consequently cost) that goes unnoticed - for example purchasing might be told to reduce their costs by a certain percentage which they do by reducing the quality of the raw materials leading to reliability or quality issues in production. The purchasing department will have achieved their objective and met their KPI's but at the detriment of the system as a whole.

In lean manufacturing if a supplier was changed then it would occur in close consultation with the people who use the product and be done using the PDCS cycle for change - Plan Do Check Sustain. That is making sure that the result of the change is what was intended and that it is sustainable over the long term.

Establishing the philosophy of lean in a business is closely linked to the culture - you can not sustainably implementa lean philosophy and lean systems if you are unwilling to do what is necessary to change the culture, the way that performance it evaluated etc. For example one part of an operation may have to sub optimise their performance in order for the whole system to perform better in order to avoid creating waste such as excessive work in progress.

Traditional performance measures can be disincentives to cooperativebehaviour. To avoidthis whenimplementing leansenior management have to develop an understanding of the need to change their thinking about the business from on that is a collection of departments to a flow of value adding that incorporates various processes management by different functional areas who have to work together towards the objective - lowering overall cost, lowering throughput time per product and increasing quality and safety. and a willingness on their part to change they way they evaluate and drive performance if the way it has been done in the past drives behaviour that is detrimental to the system as a whole.

Lean Tools

leanrt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:39:03 CDT

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Lean Systems

leanrt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:38:47 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.

Glossary

leanrt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:19:34 CDT

A-C

Term	Definition
Accounting, lean

D-G

Term	Definition

H-L

Term	Definition

M-Q

Term	Definition

R-Z

Term	Definition

Help

leanrt — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:18:15 CDT

There is no abstract available for this page revision.