Three Critical Elements of Coaching

When we begin our Lean Journey, the stage is set during the initial workshops to establish our current state, create our proposed future state and develop a plan to get us from here to there. During the implementation of the plan, we follow up between workshop with coaching and support for the individuals involved. Here we will look at the critical elements of coaching to ensure we get the best out of people during our lean implementation. This coaching may occur between both the TXM Facilitator and key people within your business, as well as between your Lean Champion and team members. It becomes a “coaching the coach” opportunity.

TXM Lean Minute – Display your Value Stream Maps in the Workplace

Displaying your current state value stream map near to the place where the work is done can unearth ideas and opportunities. Anthony Clyne explains in this TXM Lean Minute video how displaying your value stream map near where the work is actually done can lead to a better result for your business.

Don’t Understand Japanese Lean Jargon? Don’t Worry!

Have you noticed how many Lean consultants and speakers love to spice their language with Japanese words. Words like “Kanban” and “Kaizen” have almost entered the English language, but what about “nemawashi”, “hansei”, “yokoten” and “kaikaku”? What do these terms mean and does it really matter?

Improvement Ideas Scoring with a PICK Chart

There is nothing more exciting than gathering a group of people together to discuss improvement ideas, especially in a company that is maturing through the Lean Journey and team engagement is spreading. One of the challenges often faced by TXM clients early on is how we decide on the “right” improvement ideas to focus on? We have found using a PICK chart is a great way to encourage team discussion and provide timely feedback.

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.

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 …

The Waste of Mistrust

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Metrics of Concern Strips

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.

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.

Top 3 TXM Lean Minute Videos

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.