Wayne Chaneski President

Basics 5 Mar 2005

Manufacturer Takes Steps To Be More Customer-Centric

Foremost Manufacturing, located in Union, New Jersey, is one of those companies that recognize that being “good enough” just isn't good enough. With this in mind, Foremost has embarked on a program to transform itself into a manufacturing enterprise with an unwavering focus on customer service.

5 Feb 2005

Lean Implementations Don’t Fail

Having worked with many companies that are trying to improve their processes using lean manufacturing techniques, I am more convinced than ever that there is no such thing as a lean implementation that fails. Instead, the failures happen when companies have every intention of implementing lean techniques that will help their businesses, but they do not actually implement the techniques.

3 Jan 2005

Planning Improvements: A Fable

The following “fable” illustrates divergent approaches taken by two companies to improve their operations. Alpha Company started its improvement initiative with a series of departmental meetings, in which time, representatives of its management met with each employee and provided an update on business conditions, upcoming challenges, customer feedback and other areas that needed improvement.

Workforce Development 1 Dec 2004

FIFO Lane Helps Job Shops Regulate Work Flow

In last month's column, I discussed how supermarkets can help companies maintain flexibility by regulating the work flow of critical processes. Supermarkets do a great job of aligning demand and production capacity, which is key to a lean flow.

1 Nov 2004

Using A Supermarket To Regulate Your Work Flow

The key to an effective, streamlined manufacturing operation is aligning production capacity with customer demand. Whether you run a custom job shop or manufacture repetitive parts, you can benefit from using a supermarket concept to manage your flow of work.

1 Oct 2004

Are You Getting The Most From Lean Implementation?

So you have learned about the benefits of lean manufacturing, trained many of your employees on lean concepts and rolled out some process improvement events in you operation. Yet you have not, thus far, seen the benefits you had hoped for.

1 Sep 2004

New Roles Of Workers In The Lean Environment

Traditionally, supervisors identified and solved problems, made critical decisions and ensured all work was completed in a timely and accurate manner. But today’s supervisors must spend more time planning the improvements required to make their organizations leaner and more responsive.

1 Aug 2004

The New Role Of Supervisors In The Lean Enterprise

As companies transition toward lean enterprises, in which resources are committed to identifying and eliminating waste to better service their customers, many traditional roles within the organization need to change. One such role is that of the front-line supervisor.

Basics 1 Jul 2004

Making 5S Stick In Your Shop

I am often asked for suggestions on how to make a 5S program (the sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain program for improving workplace organization) really work as opposed to becoming just another “program of the month. ” It’s an interesting question.

6 Jun 2004

Success In Setup Reduction Efforts

In recent columns I have described what companies have been doing to improve their operations. Recognizing that maintaining the status quo is a recipe for disaster in this competitive environment, companies have been employing techniques such as value stream mapping (visually depicting the flow of information and material through an operation) and the 5S system of workplace organization (sort, set in order, shine, standardize and sustain) to discover opportunities to eliminate activities that do not add value.

2 May 2004

Success In Workplace Organization Efforts

In last month’s column, I discussed some of the successes companies were experiencing using the value stream mapping technique. Value stream mapping is one of the first steps a company should take when looking for opportunities to improve its operation.

2 Apr 2004

Companies Are Learning From Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping is gaining acceptance as a valuable tool for manufacturers of all types. This is because it is simple to use, yet it will accurately depict the relationship between value-added time (represented as the sum total of the cycle times of all processes in the value stream) and process waste (represented as the sum total of all inventory in the value stream).