How to get "Better Through Lean" in only 10 minutes

Discover how advanced your company is in becoming a Lean organisation by taking our 10 minute “Better Through Lean™” assessment.

The core idea of Lean Manufacturing is to maximise customer value while minimising waste. Simply, Getting better through Lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources.

A Lean organisation understands customer value and focuses its key processes to continuously increase it. The ultimate goal is to provide perfect value to the customer through a perfect value creation process that has zero waste.

To accomplish this, Lean thinking changes the focus of management from optimising separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimising the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers.

To begin your Better Through Lean assessment, go to: www.betterthroughlean.com

ABP AllBoards kickstart change

QMI Solutions provided an essential “outsiders’ perspective” for family-run ABP Allboards that helped  the company kick start change.

 

The manufacturer has so far identified $120,000 in possible savings by reducing inventory costs and the potential to save $150,000 a year in rent by rearranging the factory layout or using smaller premises. Here's some compelling pics of some of the changes ABP have made to their factory layout:

 

ABP AllBoards factory before

ABP AllBoards factory after

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Manbulloo heats up export competitiveness

In 2010, only 44% of Manbulloo mangoes met the required standard for export to Japan, China and Korea.. In monetary terms, this meant a $20K-$30K loss for just one batch. By the end of the project with QMI Solutions, the plant was operating effectively – more than 80% of Export Premium mangoes met the requirements, with negligible losses due to heat damage.

Through the project we were able to save Manbulloo approximately $500K per year.

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Process innovation gets APA off to a flying start

While benefits from process improvements are their own reward, it is tempting to sit back and think the job is now done. Asia Pacific Aerospace introduced a suite of Lean Manufacturing principles with tangible benefits including; improved turnaround times of 12% and increased capacity, but importantly they recognised the continuous improvement journey isn't over yet - in fact it is never over.

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A new sense of calm

Recent process innovations implemented at MAS Mechanical have enabled the business owner Max Smith to do the enviable - take a step away from the business and allow it to function independently based on the sustainable implementation of proven practices. Now there is a new sense of calm.

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Food for Thought - Transforming avocado/mango production with process innovation

Knowing that productivity can be improved is one thing, but where to start is another.

Based on the findings of a process benchmark tool, Simpson Farms identified areas for improvement within their manufacturing processes, enabling the reduction of lead times by 15% and increasing productivity by 10%.

Within a year, Simpson Farms implemented a range of process improvement tools such as Value Stream Mapping, Visual Performance Measurement, 5S, Leading & Managing Change and Standardised Work.

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For Toyota, Patriotism and Profits May Not Mix

This is a great and insightful article from the Wall Street Journal reporting on Toyota's overcapacity, desire to protect Japanese jobs, the importance of 'monozukuri' (manufacturing skills), export reliance, possible off-shoring to North America and losing $5 billion a year.

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Better process means better innovation

This excerpt is part of a larger post by Dr Tim Kastelle from UQ.

It is from Chess Champion Gary Kasparov commenting on the winners from a 2005 Chess tournament which allowed human and computers to enter as hybrid teams. The winners were amateur players using modest equipment with a superior process. He said:

"Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process."

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