Superfactory is sponsoring a free TWI (Training Within Industry) "webinar" produced by the TWI Summit, to be held on March 21st. For more information and to register for this webinar introduction to TWI, click here.

Superfactory is also proud to be a sponsor of the first TWI Summit this coming June in Orlando. We are also a sponsor of the 2007 Lean Accounting Summit.

As always we appreciate your support for our mission to spread manufacturing excellence knowledge. Click here for more information on sponsorships.

- Kevin Meyer

• War on waste: Maintenance
  Flight International - Feb 19, 2007
• Shingo Prize recognizes six for research excellence
  Reliable Plant Magazine, OK - Mar 2, 2007
  
• Eliminating Warehouse Inefficiencies
  Manufacturing.net, NJ - Mar 2, 2007
  
• Balancing Act
  Assembly Magazine, IL - Mar 1, 2007
  
• Power8 prepares way for "New Airbus"
  Boarding.no, Norway - Feb 28, 2007
• The Theory Of Constraints Exposed
  IndustryWeek - Feb 28, 2007
  
• Recognition Reaps Rewards
  American Machinist, OH - Feb 20, 2007
  
• Deere trims assembly lines to stay competitive
  Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, WI - Feb 24, 2007
• Ford must copy Toyota, which copied Ford
  Detroit Free Press, MI - Feb 18, 2007
  
• Sustaining Lean
  Manufacturing.net, NJ - Feb 13, 2007
  
• Lean-based material handling
  Reliable Plant Magazine, OK - Feb 12, 2007
  
• Nissan’s ‘shot in the arm’ for healthcare sector
  Easier, UK - Feb 12, 2007

Visit the Superfactory Events Calendar for the full list of events.

Quick Changeover Simplified
by Fletcher Birmingham and Jim Jelinek

The authors will walk you through the process of implementing a mini setup reduction program with some quick changeover tools and concepts that won't overwhelm you. When you start seeing the results and you're ready to implement a full-scale program, they'll take you through an eight-step process that's easy to understand. This compelling book is a quick start guide that is concise and easy read. Written for those who understand the benefits of SMED but don't know how to start. Designed so that you can read it when you have only a few minutes to spare. Distinctive in that all the examples, including the ROI statistics, are real --companies have successfully used all the strategies and tools discussed.

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Gaining executive buy-in for process improvement activities has been a major challenge for over 100 years. Taking a trip back in time to see how an experienced improvement engineer handled this problem can provide useful insights for today’s challenges.

In 1914, Charles E. Knoeppel wrote a series of articles in The Engineer Magazine that focused on the actual practice of putting efficiency methods into place in a typical manufacturing business. The series of articles was very popular, and three years later they were expanded and published as a book titled Installing Efficiency Methods. The book set out to answer two questions: “What is the first thing an efficiency engineer does when he comes into a plant on the first morning of his engagement – and what is the next thing, and the next, and the next? How does he find out where to begin the work of betterment, and what does he do when he has found it?”

Knoeppel explains how to do this step-by-step in each of the 29 chapters of the book. He was able to write this book because he had years of experience as a shop laborer and drafter, and later as a self-taught management consultant specializing in efficiency engineering. He was part of the community of practice-oriented process improvement engineers led by Frederick Winslow Taylor, who wrote the book Principles of Scientific Management.

Knoeppel’s interest was to help labor and management work together to improve the efficiency of both shop and office work. He felt that management practitioners needed additional resources to better understand and apply efficiency methods. Part of the motivation for writing such a book was no doubt related to the great difficulty people like Knoeppel had experienced in gaining top management buy-in.

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Sustaining Lean: Effective Audits
by Don Kivell

In my last column I discussed the benefits of Kaizen blitzes in sustaining lean. In particular, we saw how valuable these events are in teaching employees to constantly think about how they might make their work areas more efficient. This time I want to talk to you about audits.

Audits also help manufacturers sustain lean, and in addition they provide an excellent way of determining if past suggestions have been acted upon and improvements made, or if they’ve been neglected, contributing to waste. Done well, audits are the ultimate measuring stick. Done poorly, they are next to useless.

Winnipeg’s Cascades, a client of mine that manufactures folding cartons (such as cereal boxes) for the food and beverage industry, does thorough 5S audits to sustain its lean programs. Because the plant is largely machine driven, those big and expensive machines must keep running at all costs during a shift. As a result, ensuring uptime and preventive maintenance are two of the most significant responsibilities employees have.

Audits are performed by the plant’s lean coordinator Tracey Sokoloski, along with Cascades’ plant manager. Occasionally the general manager might replace the plant manager, but one rule doesn’t change: the audit team is always made up of two people. Why? Because they will tend to challenge each other, and what one might miss the other should catch.

Not only are their 5S audits thorough, they’re done regularly. Whereas other companies may randomly select one area of a plant every month or two and audit it, Cascades’ audits happen every month without fail, take two days, and each and every one of the 19 pieces of equipment in the plant, as well as its accompanying work cells, is audited.

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