So You and Your Company are Ready to Accomplish New Goals and Take the First Steps to Improve

As the owner of your company, you have outlined new goals to improve and grow your company. You have reached consensus; each staff member understands your vision and that change will bring mutual benefits. Key management has committed to the changes required to move forward. You have committed to identifying high impact challenges, uncovering root causes, and solving specific problems.

What are the next steps and what tools or methods will you use to make progress?

Companies such as Toyota, John Deere, and Nike have all adopted Lean processes to increase efficiencies and drive growth. Lean is a qualitative and quantitative approach to reduce waste and improve efficiencies. The Lean process is designed to reduce cycle time. Each of these companies discovered that to accomplish new goals they needed to reduce waste in both process and assembly.

Lean defines 8 types of waste that impact productivity and process:

1. Waste of Motion (excessive movement to gather and assemble parts)
2. Excess Transportation (unneeded movement of parts to and from assembly areas)
3. Overproduction (cutting or fabricating extra parts or product)
4. Extra Inventory (excess raw materials or processed parts)
5. Waiting (time wasted waiting for parts, jig setup, or removal of finished product from assembly area)
6. Over Processing (performing steps in design or specification that your customer does not value or pay for)
7. Defects (errors and omissions)
8. Under Utilization of Talent (not seeking input or collaboration)

So once you know the wastes to identify, how do you uncover them?

The Lean DMAIC process is a very effective tool for pinpointing waste in both processes and fabrication. DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control. Let me shed light on each of these steps.

• Define—identify the scope and depth of the problem and/or process that requires improvement to accomplish goals
• Measure—calculate current data and time to establish a baseline for each defined problem
• Analyze—determine how this process and potential improvement will impact the organization and affect revenue growth and profits
• Improve—develop a strategic plan and programs to increase efficiency
• Control—implement a detailed plan to maintain efficiency improvements

Most importantly, you need to continue to measure throughout this process! While you’re implementing your strategic plan, remember to take measurements that can quantify your improvements. Make sure that you are on the path to real change that will deliver improved productivity and profits.

Next Month:

Using a case study in reducing factory labor while improving output and profitability to identify waste and how the DMAIC process works