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Understanding Waste, Unevenness and Overburden – Muda, Mura and Muri
The definition of Lean is to reduce wastes. Here we will look at the THREE types of wastes the may occur in a process. W…
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Improving Our Work with a Quality Mindset
It is possible to build a Quality Mindset into everything we do. We need to consider the fundamental points of customer …
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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…
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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 “…
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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 c…
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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 …
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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…
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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…
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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 f…
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Mastering Meaningful Metrics
“What gets measured, gets managed” is the adage by management expert Peter Drukker and you would be hard pressed to …
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The Top Lean Tools for Maintenance
As we implemented and refined our Lean Enterprise Production System the stability of the processes becomes extremely imp…
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Lean Implementation Planning
Once the Lean direction and vision is set, the commitment has been communicated across the company and the deployment po…
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Lean Manufacturing Goes Hand In Hand with Quality Improvement
How do we use Lean Manufacturing methods improve quality systems? Over the years, while introducing Lean programs into m…
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Parts Quantity Analysis
If you are serious about your lean journey, you will need to jump into a Parts Quantity Analysis (PQA), also referred to…
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Making My Workplace More Visual
Making our work flows and daily metrics visible is a key to implementing lean and getting our team involved. We want to …
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Growing time for Lean
We hear time and time (and time and time) again that people "Can't find time" for lean, every day is too busy with custo…
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Implementing Lean – When and How to Start?
A common question we are asked is when should a business start implementing lean and how should it get started. Many peo…
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What Personality Type is Best Suited to Problem Solving
Most of us, at some point in recent memory will have been subjected to a personality test. Most likely it will be the My…
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Reinvigorating Your Business
January is a funny month as we wind up work mode while the weather is still warming up outside and our thoughts are drif…
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Learning to Define the “Problem”
To improve our problem solving skills we need to begin by clearly defining the "problem". Those involved in the problem …
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Total Productive Maintenance is like Servicing the Company Car
Do you often face breakdowns on critical production machines? This condition leads to lengthy delays in production or ma…
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5S and a Visual Workplace – Essential for Sustaining Lean Manufacturing
Many lean experts are critical of 5S and think it is a superficial tool. However while, 5S and Visual Workplace are not …
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Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a performance measure commonly used to monitor successful improvements to a pro…
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Andons – The Bright Lights of Lean
Andon is a term referring to a system that provides notification to management, maintenance, and other workers of a qua…
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Learning to use Manufacturing Visual Work Instructions
Visual Work instructions (VWIs) are a tool that transfer knowledge of standard work practises through the use of visual …
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Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement – Lessons from Elite Sport
Many companies that approach TXM tell us that they want to create a “culture of continuous improvement. Some people te…
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Implementing a Robust Lean Problem Solving Process
A key transition step from "implementing" Lean to it becoming a way of life is how we build problem solving into everyth…
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Point of use
What is Point of Use? Coming out of the many 5S techniques of Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardise and Sustain, is a…
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Using Fishbone Diagrams to Solve Problems
Fishbone diagrams may also be referred to as cause and effect diagrams, or Ishikawa diagrams, after their founder Kaoru …
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Getting Lean to stick
Getting Lean to stick and changing a company culture are BIG problems in many companies. If you aren't always improving,…
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Lean Production Preparation Process (3P)
Recently I visited an automotive electrical OEM to review their working supermarket for controlling work-in-process. As …
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Takt Time
The concept of takt time is one of the trickiest concepts and calculations to grasp when designing a Lean Production sys…
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Top 5 Lean Foundation Tools
The TXM team visit many different manufacturing companies, from the food and pharmaceutical industries to machining and …
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Setup Time Reduction – The Quick Change Over
For many manufacturing processes, setting up a machine to change from one product to the next is the biggest part of the…
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Considerations for implementing a Just in Time system
Implementing a just in time system is a huge undertaking and the rewards for doing so will also be huge. Previously we o…
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Metrics for Business Performance
There a many metrics that are used to measure performance across a business. Without a doubt they are a key mechanism fo…
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What is Team Leader Standard Work? (DELETE)
There are a lot of standards in Lean Manufacturing - it's our process for documenting how things are done. Standards all…
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Production Flow Elements – First In First Out (FIFO)
A key part of implementing Lean Manufacturing into a Production area is understanding Flow; how parts move along the pro…
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What Does Production Flow Look Like?
A key part of implementing Lean Manufacturing into a Production area is understanding Flow; how parts move along the pro…
