TXM Lean Minute – Lean Problem Solving – Breaking Down the Problem
Daily problem solving is at the heart of continuous improvement. We often find companies struggling by making problem solving harder than it needs to be. In this Lean Minute video Michelle Brown explains the importance of defining the problem and breaking it down in to smaller clearly defined elements that we can address one by one.
TXM Lean Minute – Why Quality Control Inspection is Waste You Should Eliminate
Does quality inspection add value to your product? The answer is “NO”, all inspection is waste and as such should be eliminated. But how do you reduce or eliminate inspection and at the same time improve the quality of the product your customers receive. This Lean Minute Video will show you how to get started on reducing inspection.
Five Reasons You Spend Your Day Firefighting and Expediting Orders – and What to Do About It
Do you find that much of your day “firefighting” to expedite orders in a vain attempt to ensure your customers get what they need on time and in full? Despite your best efforts, are you constantly frustrated by the failure of your business to follow its plans, have materials and inventory where it is needed, when it is needed and the frequency at which things simply go wrong? Learn why this happens and what to do about it in our latest blog.
TXM Lean Minute – The Five Steps to Achieving Level Production (Heijunka)
Achieving level production is a key objective of a Lean production system. Level production occurs when each process step works in unison at a constant rate of production equal to rate of customer demand or takt time. But how do you achieve level production? In our latest Lean Minute video TXM Senior Consultant, Greg Boek provides five simple steps to get you there.
Getting the Right Resources for a Successful Lean Project
How do you resource a successful Lean transformation. There are lots of different approaches and different types of Lean resources available, but what is the most effective approach. In this blog, TXM Managing Director discusses the pros and cons of the various approaches to lean resources and recommends some practical solutions.
TXM Lean Minute – Daily Standup Meetings Are Not Just for the Factory
Many businesses have found that having quick daily stand up meetings around a visual management board is an excellent way to engage shop floor teams in improving business performance. In this Lean Minute video, Michelle Brown explains how daily “stand up” meetings and visual management boards can be just as valuable for office teams as they are in the factory, warehouse or workshop.
What is Industry 4.0 – Something New or Just “Ground Hog Day”?
If you listen to the business media there is a revolution coming to manufacturing. It is called Industry 4.0, a fourth industrial revolution based on emerging technologies such as “the internet of things”, “big data”, advanced automation and additive technologies. So what is new and different about Industry 4.0, what does it change and what should you be doing about it?
TXM Lean Minute – Balancing Workflow for Level Production
Lean manufacturing aims for level production, where the throughput of each process step is balanced to match the rate of customer demand or takt time. Level production enables businesses to dramatically reduce lead times and work in progress and increase productivity. In this lean minute video, Tim McLean explains how to balance processes and achieve level production in a machine shop.
Seven Steps of a Successful Lean Transformation
Seven Steps of a Successful Lean Transformation It’s always difficult to make change, and it’s even more difficult for a Lean transformation since it is a change toward perfection. As the saying goes, “Only a downhill path walks easy”. To begin with, many senior leaders itch to implement Lean principles to every corner of their …
John Pollaers to Headline Operational Excellence National Summit – Melbourne 3 December
John Pollaers, the Chairman of the Australian Advanced Manufacturing Council will be the keynote speaker for the Best Practice Network Operational Excellence National Summit on 3 December at the Melbourne Airport Park Royal Hotel.
Increasingly it seems that the assumption built in to most of our lives is that we can trust pretty much no-one. Almost every transaction we do is wrapped in passwords and privacy checks on the assumption that we are all potential hackers and identity thieves. In Lean Thinking, we typically define waste as an activity that does not add value to the customer. Mistrust is a great source of non-value added waste.
S & A Stairs: Lean Manufacturing Applied to Customised Staircases
In this lean case study video, Slattery and Acquroff Director, Rob Beard explains how Lean has really streamlined their business and helped it grow. Slattery and Acquoff make high quality customised staircases from natural timber, steel and glass.
TXM Lean Minute – Practical 5S – Creating Standard Workstations
5S is a great business tool in so many ways. By creating standard workstations your team can make their life easier and increase their productivity. It will also save you real money in lost tools and partly used materials. Learn about standard workstations from our latest Lean Minute video
Nine Tips to Sustain Your Lean Office
There is a lot of literature on implementing Lean in office and administrative functions and the concept is not new. However I still see relatively few companies that have driven real sustainable change in their office processes through Lean. In our experience there are some key factors to ensure that your Office lean efforts lead to sustainable results
TXM Lean Minute – Avoiding the Waste of Overproduction
As leaders in a manufacturing business we need to be careful about the messages we send. When we put too much emphasis on “keeping machines running” we can inadvertently drive a culture of overproduction where we run our machines to make product we don’t really need and fill our workshops with work in progress, extending our lead times.
TXM Lean Minute – Practical 5S – 5S Every Inch of Your Business!
When you implement 5S often it is the details that can trip you up. In this Practical 5s Lean minute video TXM Senior Consultant, Michelle Brown, explains how to 5S every inch of your business using a 5S Map.
Ronson Gears – Lean in a Machine Shop
Implementing lean in a machine shop is challenging. In a jobbing shop every day presents a new range of products to be manufactured, many for the first time. Ronson gears have overcome this challenge with a practical approach to implementing Lean that has delivered dramatic business improvement as our latest Lean Case Study Video explains
Get your employees fully engaged in Lean in China, Using a Push and a Pull.
In a summer day several years ago, I attended a speech about Lean in China by a famous global Lean guru. My neighbor seat just said one word to me: “Rubbish!” when the guru suggested giving the employee training to get them to understand how lean will bring benefits to them if the company grows …
Top 6 Opportunities for Lean Office Improvements in your Business
As many readers of this blog will know, there are a huge range of ways in which Lean can reduce waste and improve performance in the office. Therefore I thought I would give a few examples where we at TXM have seen Lean approaches yield dramatic improvement.
TXM Lean Case Study – Alimak Hek Sees Reduced Lead Times
Alimak Hek is a world leader in the supply of material and personnel lifts for the construction industry. In Australia, Alimak Hek, provides leading solutions for industrial elevators, mast climbing work platforms, transport platforms and material hoists for both permanent and temporary installations on multi-story construction projects. The increase in demand from the construction market …
TXM Lean Minute – Level Production and Creating a Visual Workflow
Levelling work enables you see the status of production in real time and gets products and services to your customers on time every time. In this Lean Minute, TXM Senior Consultant, Greg Boek, explains the secrets of levelling production and creating a visual work flow.
TXM Lean Minute – Lean Thinking – What is Value? What is Waste?
Fundamental to Lean Thinking is the concept of value and waste. This simple video explains the concepts so you can start looking for waste in your business
What is Lean – Employee Engagement
What is Lean? Looking for a simple introduction to what lean manufacturing means for your office or factory? Here it is. JoLean is an average worker with average problems. So how can you engage your team and employees like JoLean to embrace change. In this video, the first of our “Justin Time” series, lean coach Justin shows JoLean and her managers how Lean can transform their work day and deliver real results for the business.
TXM Lean Minute – The Role of a Lean Transformation Steering Committee
An effective Steering Committee is a critical element of a company wide lean deployment. In this Lean Minute, TXM Director, Ron Spiteri explains the important role and critical success factors for a Lean Transformation steering committee.
Three Steps to Improve Quality and Reduce Reliance on Inspection in China
A few years ago almost everyone you spoke to had a “bad China quality story”. Much of it was exaggerated and most of it was unfair given the huge number of high quality products “Made in China” including icons like the Apple iPhone, Airbus A320 and Mercedes E-Class. However the reality is quality problems do still occur with Chinese manufacturers.
TXM Lean Minute – How to Choose the Tasks for your Red-Green Task Board (Kamishibai)
Red Green Task Boards (or Kamishibai Boards) are a great way to ensure that every day tasks get done in your business. This Lean Minute from TXM Senior Consultant, Michelle Brown, shows you how to work with your team to choose the right tasks for your red-green task board.
Why Lean Business Processes Fail – Does your “Gate” Have No “Fence”?
We have all read the books, we all know the theory – Lean business processes are GREAT! They cut waste, cut lead times and streamline processes. However the little secret that no one will tell you is that sometimes they just don’t work! In this blog we discuss a key reason why this happens.
Download a Presentation about the Need for Lean Manufacturing in China
Download the presentation for free from Tim McLean’s recent speech at Fudan University about how Lean Manufacturing is needed to improve competitiveness in China.
Seven Reasons NOT to Fire your Factory Manager
The role of Factory Manager (or Operations Manager, Plant Manager, General Manager – title is not important) is one of the most challenging in business. In most cases firing the Factory Manager is does not improve manufacturing performance and often makes it worse. So before you “push the button” on firing your Factory Manager, read our “Seven Reasons NOT to Fire your Factory Manager”:
TXM Lean Minute – Engage your People in Value Stream Mapping
Value Stream Mapping is a great tool for understanding your business. Building a value stream map based on superficial or incorrect information will not only lead to a poor result, it also fails to show respect to the people who do the work. In this Lean Minute, TXM Consulting Director, Anthony Clyne explains why it is important to engage your people in developing a value stream map.
TXM Lean Minute – Lean Leadership – Effective Senior Leadership Sponsorship
Senior Leadership support is a critical success factor for lean implementation. In this Lean Minute, TXM Director, Ron Spiteri explains the critical sponsorship role that senior leaders play in a successful Lean deployment
Lean Sales Project Features in Harvard Business Review
At TXM we knew the work TXM Director, Ron Spiteri, had done with Kimberly Clark Professional was pretty special, but the significance of this innovative approach to Lean Sales was brought home when it featured in the March edition of the world’s most prestigious business journal, the Harvard Business Review.
TXM Lean Minute – Autonomous Maintenance
Care for your machine like you care for your car. In this Lean Minute, TXM China Consulting Director, Justin Tao, explains how Autonomous Maintenance means operators do simple every day cleaning, lubricating and machine checks, just like the simple checks we do every time we get in our car.
TXM Lean Minute – Improve your Business with Active Experimentation
Adults learn by doing. We call this active experimentation. In this Lean Minute video, Anthony Clyne explains how you can engage your team in using active experimentation to innovate and improve your business.
Across manufacturing sectors we are living in a data-rich world, which is both a blessing and a curse. Data can take many forms and often changes as the needs of business change. At one end of the spectrum we have hand-drawn, manually collected metric charts. These progress all the way to advanced MRP systems that can turn reports in visualisation resources to make graphs of anything you want, but too much data quickly becomes noisy and un-actionable, so which metrics do you need to focus on? This article will focus on the metrics and systems we create around Solving Problems Every Day (SPED) and Concern Strips as the key element of SPED, including Time to Resolution, Time to Respond and Escalations.
Creating a Standard Lean Workstation: Low Volume – High Mix Industry
S & A Stairs craftsman work in a low volume, high mix industry. Designing a standard Lean workstation is the first steps towards developing work standards. Here are the three key steps in creating a standard lean workstation.
TXM Lean Minute – Lead Lean Culture Change Through Changing Every Day Behaviours
To truly sustain Lean you need to create a Lean culture in your business. In this Lean Minute video, Ron Spiteri explains how to change everyday behaviors in your team to support a Lean culture.
TXM Lean Methodology – Manufacturing Agility Process
TXM has adapted proven Lean value stream mapping techniques to work for complex, customised and low volume production processes.The Manufacturing Agility Process enables companies to streamline these complex processes in order to reduce lead time, increase agility and grow their. business. Watch this TXM Lean Methodology Video to learn more about the Manufacturing Agility Process.
Our TXM Lean Minute videos have attracted attention from around the globe and we love bringing them to you! They are a fun way to bring our lean philosophy, theory and practical tools to life, and hopefully the help to reinforce a point you already know, or to bring you something new, or a new way of looking at things in your business.
TXM Lean Minute – Creating a Culture of Daily Problem Solving
Creating a culture where your teams use simple practical problem solving techniques every day can drive dramatic improvement in your business. However how do you create a sustainable culture of daily problem solving. Watch this Lean Minute Video to Learn More.