Project Management
Project managers know how to break down a large project into manageable components and follow through to execution. Visual management, project kanban, and other approaches will minimize project risks.
Supply Chain
As you work to address your lean supply chain costs, you’ll probably uncover the fact that your supply chain may be the biggest cost opportunity you have. Many organizations overlook this opportunity. Does your team have extensive experience applying lean to all aspects of the supply chain?
Lean Operations
Are you delivering exactly what your customer wants exactly when wanted? As a business leader you want to use the latest combination of Lean and Six Sigma tools and principles to move your Operations Team towards world class lean operations.
18 Long Lead Time Purchasing Strategies
18 Long Lead Time Purchasing Strategies
In project management the long pole is the part of the project that is on the critical path due to how long it will take. For example, if you have a project that consists of three independent sub-projects, then the sub-project with the longest completion date is the long pole. In a make-to-order business environment […]
Warehouse Slotting
Warehouse Slotting
What Is Warehouse Product Slotting? Warehouse Product Slotting is defined as the intelligent location of product in a warehouse or distribution center for the purpose of optimizing material handling efficiency. Sometimes called inventory slotting, or profiling, it identifies the most efficient placement for each item in a distribution center or warehouse. Since each instance is […]
Scientific Method and Improvement Kata
Scientific Method and Improvement Kata
Scientific Method is the systematic observation, measurement, experimentation, formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses. Hypotheses are a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation. Improvement Kata is the repeated practicing a pattern to learn a skill or way of thinking, to become second nature, […]
Measuring Supply Chain Forecast Accuracy
Definitions, Lean Sigma, Sigma, Supply Chain
Measuring Supply Chain Forecast Accuracy
Measuring Supply Chain Forecast Accuracy is usually done with Mean Absolute Percent Error or MAPE, the average of percentage errors. But there are several other metrics to consider. Here’s an example …
10 Things to Improve Forecast Accuracy
10 Things to Improve Forecast Accuracy
Forecasts are never right but you can improve your forecast accuracy … You can’t improve what you don’t measure Aggregate – individual plus or minus swings cancel each other out Measure forecast accuracy at the right time fences Review forecasts by exception only. If the forecast deviation is within expected limits leave well enough alone […]
Not so ‘Good to Great’
Not so ‘Good to Great’
An executive asked my opinion about having his staff all read Good to Great by Jim Collins (2001). It’s been years since I first read the book, one of many business books collecting dust in my library. When I went back to the list of companies used for research I saw some I knew hadn’t […]
Kanban and Sustainability
Kanban and Sustainability
Dear Larry, Andrew and Guanair; How are you doing ? I would like to share with you that We Won the Whirlpool Sustainability-2013 award, among 536 suppliers and 55 projects, With our project about plastic returnable box saving industrial waste (avoid 75000 cardboard boxes /2500 wood pallets /50 km of plastic wrap /40 ton of […]
Business Model Canvas
Business Model Canvas
Remember how you felt when you first started drawing your first Value Stream Maps? Well that’s how I felt when I first got my hands on Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder, and Yves Pigneur. This is a new visual tool you can use to help connect your value propositions to your customers and suppliers. The […]
LeanSigma Tool Kit
LeanSigma Tool Kit
Lean Sigma Behavior Other Customer &Process Focus Muda, Muri, Mura Value Stream Map Flow, Takt, Pull Visual Management Process Analysis Problem Solving Quick Changeover Standard Operations One Piece Flow Kanban Heijunka Respect for People Total Productive Maintenance Jidoka Quality Voice of the Customer Critical to X Project Management, DMAIC Statistics Data Collection Rolled Throughput Yield […]
Demand Segmentation – one size fits none
Lean, Lean Sigma, Supply Chain
Demand Segmentation – one size fits none
We know better than to try to force fit strategies yet time and again we find businesses planning and managing their processes with a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Hospital services, insurance underwriting, pharmaceutical production, consumer electronics assembly, integrated supply chain services all struggle with finding the right balance of specialization and common process. At […]
Supply Chain Kaizen
Supply Chain Kaizen
Euclides Coimbra latest book recently made it to the top of my reading list. Kaizen in Logistics & Supply Chains is a well considered application of lean and blitz to the fields of logistics and supply chain management. Here you will find detailed advice on flow, takt, cell design, kanban, internal and external logistics, standard […]
Lean Sales Forecasting
Lean Sales Forecasting
Why can’t Sales give us a decent forecast? Paraphrasing George E.P. Box, “All forecasts are wrong, some are useful.” If forecasts are wrong, then why forecast? Supply chain lead time is often much longer than the customer is willing to wait, and so the business carries inventory somewhere, and inventory is a waste. The Lean […]