Blog Archives

The Lean Manager: Solving your own Problems

The book “The Lean Manager”, by Michael Balle and Freddy Balle is a novel come textbook on understanding Lean. Toda…
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…
TXM Lean Manufacturing Tip – Couple Manufacturing processes

Traditional improvement programs focus on optimising individual pieces of equipment. Anyone with a new machine will unde…
Getting Results with Lean Manufacturing

A popular way to implement lean across the world is through implementing a training program. This is often driven by the…
Learning About Lean Manufacturing – the Best Lean Books to Get you Started

It can be a bit bewildering trying to work out where to start with lean. One good way to get an understanding of what le…
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 …
Practical 5S: Lean Begins With a Well Organised Workplace

Where ever you are in your Lean Manufacturing implementation, using 5S as your workplace organisation tool ensures you a…
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)

Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a performance measure commonly used to monitor successful improvements to a pro…
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…
Doing 5S Workplace Organisation Effectively

These common pitfalls are often seen as failures and lead to poor ongoing implementation of 5S practises. However, the b…
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 …
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…
Lean Leadership: You Can’t Recruit Your Way to Success

One of the most important skills in business is the ability to attract and select good people. In fact, in my time as a …
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…
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…
Why Audit Weekly 5S Workplace Organisation?

We know that housekeeping is one of the fundamental Lean principles; a foundation stone for the Toyota Production System…
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 …
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,…
Leading a Lean Transformation

Lean transformation requires Lean Know-how and skills to drive sustainable change in your organisation. Tim McLean expla…
Lean Production Preparation Process (3P)

Recently I visited an automotive electrical OEM to review their working supermarket for controlling work-in-process. As …
Leadership Behaviour to Sustain Lean

Sustaining our lean implementation is a challenge faced by every business, regardless of industry you are in. As we prog…
Implementing Daily Problem Solving

A robust problem solving approach is the best method for tackling problems while implementing a Lean production system.…
Takt Time

The concept of takt time is one of the trickiest concepts and calculations to grasp when designing a Lean Production sys…
Top 5 Lean Foundation Tools

The TXM team visit many different manufacturing companies, from the food and pharmaceutical industries to machining and …
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…
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…
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…
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…
Looking Across Your Manufacturing Supply Chain & Implementing a Lean Program

When looking to implement a Lean enterprise philosophy across your company, it doesn't take long with the planning and d…
Production Flow Elements – Two-Bin System

Over the last few articles, we have been discussing the importance of Production flow and the different Lean tools that …
How To: Solving Problems Every Day

The SPED (Solving Problems Every Day) method is about solving many small problems every day. Most probl…
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…
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…