How To Create Flow When There is No Assembly Line

One of the most well-known Lean concepts is that of “flow”. The most familiar example of flow is the automotive assembly line. In this article Tim McLean runs your through how to create a production flow without an assembly line.

TXM Lean Case Study – Hazchem Safety

Hazchem Safety in Brackley are the UK’s leading supplier of safety clothing and equipment for the transport and handling of dangerous goods. Hazchem Safety are celebrating 40 years of protecting people transporting hazardous goods.

TXM Lean Minute – Managing Your Inventory From Long Lead Time Suppliers

In this Lean Minute, TXM UK Senior Lean Consultant, Lee Candy explains the principles behind reducing stock and increasing frequency can help you manage you supplier relationships more effectively. This Lean Minute was filmed at Broadfix UK Read the Video Transcript The problem many manufacturing, and warehouses businesses face is how they manage their stock …

TXM Lean Minute – Start Your Day with a Stand Up Meeting

Read the Video Transcript How many productive hours do you lose each day? Hi I’m Tim Scurlock and welcome to this TXM Lean Minute. The start of each working day helps to set the pace and tone for the rest of the day. That’s why TXM recommend you start each day with a daily stand …

TXM Lean Minute – Make Stock Checks Part of Your Daily Routine

  Do you shut your facility for your annual stock checks? This can cause unnecessary disruption to your organisation. Getting the right level of stock is a science take the guess work out by conducting daily stock checks for greater accuracy. The aim is to ensure that you have the right stock levels to fulfill …

Four Lean Strategies for Uncertain Economic Times

Too often the response of business in uncertain times is to do nothing and “wait and see”. This approach unfortunately means that the business is unprepared when the underlying direction of the economy (upwards or downwards) becomes clear. Instead we recommend businesses take proactive steps during uncertain time to prepare them for whatever future conditions …

Five Career Limiting Mistakes Operations Leaders Should Avoid

Senior leaders in operations often have the largest proportion of the workforce reporting to them and need to balance improving performance by ensuring that day to day operations run smoothly. Read the top five operations mistakes that leaders should avoid.

TXM Lean Minute – Use Kaizen to Improve Your Business Every Day

TXM Lean Minute – Use Kaizen to Improve Your Business Every Day   Kaizen roughly means, “change for the better.” This is the terminology we often use to describe our approach to continuous improvement. Many people get caught up with lean and kaizen as being just small improvements that happen every day across the organization. …

Five Tips for Designing an Organisational Structure that Works

It would be nice to think that people in an organisation could just organise themselves and work out what they have to do. In very small businesses, this is what happens. People just jump in and “do what needs to be done”. However as businesses grow, they need to define a structure and roles within …

The Top Seven Common Problems in Project Manufacturing and How to Overcome Them

What is Project Manufacturing? When we think of a manufacturing business, we usually think of a business that manufactures a defined range of products. These products are manufactured in the same way every time. Product development typically involves a creative design phase, a process of testing and approval, prototyping or production trials and finally product …

Right Part, Right Place, Right Time

The Keys to Successful Lean Material Management Over the years many manufacturers have adopted Lean tools focused on improving the efficiency of production processes.  However, often despite these efforts manufacturers still suffer downtime, poor productivity and missed deliveries. The cause is the inability to get materials to the right place at the right time and …

Our Top Five Lean Leadership Videos

Over the years, Lean Leadership has been a key focus of our blogs and videos. TXM Lean Solutions has plenty of resources for you to read, watch and learn. Here is a selection of Lean Leadership videos. TXM Lean Methodology Video – Lean Daily Leadership Process The key to growing a business is often the …

Implementing an ERP System

We offer practical Lean solutions to businesses implement your ERP System that can live with your Kanban system. Contact us today.

TXM Lean Case Study – Broadfix

TXM helped Broadfix achieve a 25% reduction in inventory and their backorders have fallen by 80% all whilst using their existing machines and setup. Watch the Interview with Richard Jenner!

The Role Of Your Senior Leadership Team In Ensuring Lean Delivers Results

The Role of Your Senior Leadership Team Explained Embracing Lean thinking and making it part of your corporate DNA is a difficult challenge. Your Senior Leadership Team is key to achieving this. Start by apply Lean thinking to achieve immediate strategic goals. Demonstrate the corporate commitment with consistent communications. Realistic expectations are: The Senior Leadership …

Is Your Business Ready for Lean?

  Is Lean Right For You? We see many businesses that are facing big problems. Often there are major problems with flow (both in the office and the factory), long lead times, poor on time delivery and poor quality. Housekeeping and safety is often not up to standard and front line staff are disengaged. Sometimes …

Achieving Perfect Delivery with a Lean Supply Chain

What does it take to deliver what your customer needs, in the quantity they need, on time, every time? It should be simple. It really is the most fundamental requirement of any manufacturing or distribution business. So why do so many businesses find on time, in full delivery so hard to achieve? TXM Expertise: Supply …

Eliminate the 3 Key Wastes to Create an efficient Lean Office Environment

Lean Thinking defines wastes as work that adds no value to the customer. The well-known Seven Wastes are transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, and defects. These wastes were originally targeted at manufacturing processes. However,  when it comes to the office and service environment, wastes tend to be more difficult to recognise and thus more …

Does Industry 4.0 Mean the End of Lean?

Does Industry 4.0 Mean the End of Lean? In the last couple of years I have been asked a surprising question. “Does Industry 4.0 mean the end of Lean?” So should you be parking your Lean initiatives and bringing in an Industry 4.0 expert to assess your readiness for the next wave of manufacturing? What …

Overcoming Four Big Barriers to a Lean Culture Part 4: Stopping Passive Acceptance

Creating a Lean culture, or for that matter creating any positive change, seems very difficult in some organisations. They seem to have a form of entropy where all improvement regresses quickly back to the mediocre normal. Observing these companies, we often find four big cultural barriers – complacency, low expectations, learned helplessness, and passive acceptance. …

TXM Lean Case Study – DMG Mori China

The Challenge DMG Mori is one of the largest machine tools builders in the world. Like many manufacturers in China, DMG Mori was facing rapid rising costs. This was making it difficult for the Shanghai factory to compete with other DMG Mori plants, particularly those in Eastern Europe. This led to a fall in export …

Our Top 5 Practical 5S Workplace Organisation Videos

Practical 5S is one of the easiest Lean techniques to implement but one of the hardest to sustain. View a selection of 5S Lean Minute Videos from the TXM Lean Solutions archive and learn how to sustain 5S in your organisation.

Four Simple Tips for a Successful Kanban System

4 Simple Steps for an Effective Kanban System Kanban Systems or Pull Systems of various types are now common across many industries. They are cheap, simple to operate and can lead to large cost and inventory reductions. Here are some guidelines to help make your pull system work effectively: 1. Keep the Lead Time Short …

Overcoming Four Big Barriers to a Lean Culture Part 2: Beating Low Expectations

Creating a Lean culture, or for that matter creating any positive change, seems very difficult in some organisations. They seem to have a form of entropy where all improvement regresses quickly back to the mediocre normal. What are the Big Barriers to a Lean Culture? Observing these companies, we often find four big cultural barriers …

Lean Inventory Management — Understand it Before You Try to Slash it!

Inventory management is one of the biggest costs in a business and often the largest commitment of cash is inventory. In Lean thinking, all inventory is also waste. So what is the right level of inventory for your business? Find out More about Inventory from Tim McLean’s New Book Inventory is an Outcome A common …

Overcoming The Four Big Barriers To A Lean Culture Part 1: Breaking Through Complacency

How Do You Create a Lean Culture? Creating a Lean culture, or for that matter creating any positive change, seems very difficult in some organisations. They seem to have a form of entropy where all improvement regresses quickly back to the mediocre normal. Observing these companies, we often find four big cultural barriers: Complacency – …

TXM Lean Minute – Finding the Root Cause to Fix Problems Permanently

TXM Lean Minute – Finding the Root Cause to Fix Problems Permanently Teach your people to find permanent solutions to every day problems. This Lean minute video explains the basics of how to use simple root cause analysis to find the root cause of problems and develop and implement a permanent fix. Learn How to …

TXM Lean Case Study – Due Diligence for Private Equity Firm

The Challenge Our client was a leading Private Equity firm looking to acquire a manufacturer of capital equipment. The target company had two substantial manufacturing operations in Australia, one in the Middle East and key suppliers in China and India. TXM were engaged to assist with technical due diligence including assessing risks and opportunities in …

TXM Lean Case Study – Reduced Lead Time & Increased Competitiveness

The Challenge Our client is a leading precision engineering company focused on the defence and aerospace sectors. Their customer was operating an advanced helicopter in a demanding marine environment. This environment was causing corrosion of key operating components in the helicopter, leading to frequent repairs and low service availability of the aircraft. Lead times for overhaul of …

TXM Lean Case Study – Lean Transformation in Oil Production

TXM Lean Case Study – Lean Transformation in Oil Production The Challenge Our client is an oil industry joint venture between a leading oil production state and a global oil major. We were engaged to assist in deployment of a continuous improvement system developed by the global oil company. Our engagement co-coincided with a historic …

TXM Lean Case Study – Reduction of Inventory and Cost for Mining Equipment Overhaul

Reduction of Inventory and Cost for Mining Equipment Overhaul Long Wall Mining is a highly mechanised and effective method of underground mining. The Challenge Our client was a long established precision engineering company engaged in the maintenance repair and equipment overhaul (MRO) of key components used in long wall coal mining. The company was well …

Waste in Lean Manufacturing: Find the Hidden Waste in your Business

When you walk through your workplace do you find it hard to see waste? Maybe you have implemented 5S so the workplace looks well organized and have a solid order backlog so that everyone seems really busy. In this environment, you may look at your operation and think that the opportunity to improve is now …

Supporting Good Communication with Technology

Good communication is central to having a prospering organisation and technology solutions may be able to help take your communication to the next level. Here we will outline the basic needs for good communication and a few software solutions that may help your team to further improve their communications.

How to Recruit a Great Operations Manager

How do you recruit a great Operations Manager i? We talked to an experienced manufacturing recruiter and came up with some simple steps that will hopefully enable you to fit the right person for your business.