Steve Palmer on
When “the way we have always done it” isn’t causing any problems and the system is coping, there’s very little incentive to make changes. But when things start to go wrong and no one is sure why, it’s time to review the processes and look for improvements. This is a common situation that WLP are
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Steve Palmer on
In my last blog post, I talked about three steps to improving productivity in made-to-order manufacturing environments. These steps were: Establish standard processes using standard inputs Ensuring information and manufacturing flows Automate or Autonomate In this article I want to explore the step carried out prior to any of these, that was briefly touched upon
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Steve Palmer on
All the talk at present is about productivity and how we can’t, as a nation, afford to pay ourselves more as productivity has not improved. The productivity being talked about is the value we create per individual. Within a production environment we can define value add as the new margin (sales value minus direct costs
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Steve Palmer on
Introduction Centurion Safety Products Ltd experienced a sudden increase in demand for its respiratory products due to a competitor withdrawing from the marketplace. This was putting their traditional manufacturing process under unsustainable strain. WLP were asked to help them overcome their capacity constraint. What We Did: trained key members of the manufacturing team in relevant lean
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Steve Palmer on
In recent years much of my work has been within ‘make to order’ environments where the products are tailored to the specific requirements of customers. As is so often the case, managers are focused on keeping the production staff busy, sometimes pulling orders forward when demand is slack. This risks customer’s changing requirements resulting in
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Steve Palmer on
Recently I have been working with manufacturing companies which make to order because the product they make is specified by the customer prior to manufacture. In both cases the process of manufacture is consistent, it is just the size of the product that varies. Orders typically involve a mix of sizes. One manufacturer has semi-automated
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Wilson Lee on
A national fleet provider of a mixed vehicle fleet identified that their fleet maintenance scheduling system was not providing effective or consistent planning of the MOT, LOLER / PUWER or vehicle maintenance events. Hence potentially placing their customers O Licence certification at risk! Using Lean Six Sigma methods our consultant worked closely with the client’s
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Steve Palmer on
A lot of companies record a lot of data. Financial information, orders, process data, people data, quality data, outcome data. This data is often used to check whether things are OK or not. What about using this data to answer those questions we’d love to answer? Such questions include: Why is my rework so high?
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Steve Palmer on
Allaway Acoustics design, manufacture and install noise control systems across the world. They needed to improve the competitiveness of their business by reducing the cost of their manufacturing operation. What We Did: Trained a mixed group of Directors, Managers, Team Leaders and Shop-Floor Staff in Lean Processing Implemented Visual Product Planning, Balanced Flow and Kanban Management
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Steve Palmer on
One of the best methods of measuring how well a production line is running is Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE). To help explain how OEE works, below is an example. Example I have a plant that I know runs at 10 tes per hour when everything is great. It runs 24 hours a day. That means in theory I
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