GROWTH by OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
GROWTH by OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE - - A Systems Approach
The long term success for any company can be attributed to Innovation. We must continuously strive to "Providing the Right Product or Service, at the Right time, in the Right amount using the Right Process while persistently improving value. Times have changed drastically over the last few years since our global economy has become smaller. Being a market leader in a shrinking market is not a long-term viable strategy. Innovation allows organizations to create new markets. The best competition is no competetion.
Many companies come up with great innovative ideas and find it very hard to turn those ideas into quick solutions for many reasons, including: long times to market, expensive and extensive validation testing or prohibitive capital investment costs. Breakthrough Lean innovation is not for the few, it's an approach that combines Toyota's Lean principles and Value Engineering with Deisgn for Green - Lean Sigma. Think about your organization, most companies do not emphasize creativity, "Blue Ocean Thinking".
Does your orgaization have a repeatable approach to consistenly provide breakthrough products using lean production processes at lightning speeds? What is your systems approach to Lean Product/Service and Process Development? Incorporating Design for Green-Lean Sigma will help guide solutions that will reduce the impact on the environment while simultaneously reducing overall costs.
It starts with the customer's definition of the issue that has not been addressed. The voice of the customer should begin the breakthrough idea frenzy. Do you have a repeatable approach to creating a breakthrough idea frenzy? Think of it as your systems approach for accelerating creativity? Is it effective? Please see Lean 3P below for more information on Product/Service Design.
Usually most of the focus in engineering is on the ability to meet quality/life and scheduled review/toll gates. Have you applied Lean principles to drive down the time to market? We have proven that product development should not be measured in years or months. Establishing a successful Lean product/service development system includes an expectation that the previous lead-times to market are no longer tollerable. Breakthrough expectation leads to success.
Many great ideas are eliminated due to the high cost of capital equipment or space needs. How many ideas would be viable if the original capital cost estimate could be reduced by 75 - 90%? We have successfuly helped many clients to implement Lean production processes that have not ownly reduced capital equipment investments by 90%, but also have reduced daily reoccuring costs by 75%. One of our early clients has used the Lean 2P design to allow them to in-source piston pump parts and save on purchasing costs as well as transportation, quality and lead-times. Please see the video below on Lean Production Preparation Process. The world has still not kept up with this approach to manufacturing, colleges still teach the wrong approach (batch and queue) to manufacturing.
Lean 3P – Product & Production Preparation Process
The Lean Design System has four components:
Lean 3P Breakthru Product & Production Preparation Design Kaizen
“And then we make Money”
These are the words we are waiting to hear. So all we have to do is give the customers what they want. That's why it is so crucial to understand the voice of the customer. Be careful, it can be easy to do a great job introducing a new product only to find out the customer never wanted it.
New product development efforts must be accelerated to utilize the resources that are freed-up during Kaizen events.
Is your product development cycle measured in years or days. Expect products developed using Lean 3P to be introduced to the market in 3 to 6 months.
Product Development Starts with Understanding your Customer's Needs
Use the Quality Functional Diagram (QFD) to illustrate the Voice of the Customer. Be careful when creating your QFD to stay focused on the end customer as compared to a distributor.
What is important to a distributor may be different than what is important to the end user. Create customer questionnaires and satisfaction surveys to help gather the data required for the QFD. Do you know how you rank against your competitors? What are the biggest sales drivers? Price, lead-time, quality, on-time delivery, special features/services?
Determine Functional Groups & Create Ideas at a Glance:
Deselect Alternatives
Use DFA, DFM, design failure mode effects analysis and corrective action (FMEACA) and Lean accounting principles to downselect alternatives and combine features to create new alternatives. Use Breakthru-sigma (Six-sigma) to size and select materials and tolerances. Create models and verification plans.
Lean 3P Breakthru Product Design Results Include:
Lean 2P – Production Preparation Process Design Kaizen or Machine/Process Design
Use Lean 2P Breakthru to Improve Productivity and Safety
Use Lean 2P Breakthru to create a production process that eliminates waiting and the number of process steps by implementing Jidoka (separate man from machine). Before 2P two operators were required to manually rotate a strap in order to flip a large slab of granite. It caused one operator to wait for another. The process was time consuming and dangerous.
Use Lean 2P to Eliminate Monument Equipment and Create a One-Piece Flow Process
Tired of setting for traditional batch equipment. Create your own custom equipment based on Toyota Production System Principles. Eliminate large monument equipment by creating many smaller machines to improve lead-times, Quality, productivity at a fraction of the monument replacement cost.
Improve your Return on Net Assets (RONA) by selling expensive CNC equipment (causes cash flow increase and one time depreciation reduction). Use Lean 2P Breakthru Process Design to create smaller inexpensive machines to replace large complex expensive CNC equipment.
Use Lean 2P Breakthru Process Design to Improve Profits by In-Sourcing
