By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) The following story makes us understand the deep meaning of the "kaizen spirit". This text has been written by Nampachi Hayashi when he was 70. Hayashi holds the post of senior technical executive, which is said to be the highest technical post at Toyota Motor Corporation TMC). Since being assigned to […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) Last week newspaper headlines were being monopolized by the Volkswagen issue. I couldn't read all these articles, but I have read a lot of them. Most of reporters commented the fall of stock prices, how US administration (and those of other countries) and VW's customers were deceived. Other comments were speculations […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) Some of my missions consist in helping Make-to-Order companies improve their On-Time-Delivery performance (OTD). Generally, these companies set up specific OTD objectives for each department, expecting them to deliver their work on-time. Each department being encouraged for one-time deliveries, it is assumed that everyone will manage things for delivering work-orders on-time, […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) It is often said or written that lean is the elimination of wastes, wastes being defined as non-value-added activities (also called muda). For helping teams to implement lean, we teach them the seven wastes and we expect them to identify and eliminate these wastes in their work area. Considering lean as […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) As a reminder, a VSM (Value Stream Map) is a graphic representation (map) of material and information flows related to a “value stream”. The same acronym is used to name the Value Stream Mapping process. The value stream is made of all the steps the material flow goes through. Some of […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) A lot of my missions consist in helping companies to set up a pull system. It is surprising to see how many of these companies already tried kanban, without managing to keep it going on. In these cases, talking about kanban with teams remembering the failure is always difficult: why would […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) This article is dedicated to Keith FitzPatrick and all those passionate people who are taking part to the discussion initiated by Keith on the APICS Group on LinkedIn : "Kanban to the masses... not for beer drinking though!" Kanban is a well-known and powerful method. Kanban is the tool which is […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) When they are talking about their customers' expectations, all the managers of manufacturing companies say without hesitation products and services quality, short lead times (speed), high customer service level (dependability), and the ability to adjust to the demands (flexibility), in addition to low costs. When they are asked about the evolution […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) The lean approach, often discussed in this blog, is now considered essential for our companies' competitiveness. At the same time, this approach is becoming more and more criticized. Disappointment is often observed when the results don't meet the expectations, or don't last. And sometimes, although the lean approach is presented as […]
By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr) In most of the recently published books about lean, an 8th waste (muda) is added to the “7 wastes according to Toyota”. Next to over-production, waiting, inventory, corrections, motion, transportation and over-processing, "unused people skills” is indeed mentioned. Blue collars immediately come to mind: appointed only to manufacturing tasks, they are […]