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The Superfactory Newsletter is published monthly to over 50,000 subscribers. Inside Superfactory About -
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Volume 10 Issue 5 | May 2009 | www.superfactory.com |
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From the Editor
What a whirlwind year! Now is the time to invest in lean improvements. Check out Gemba Academy, including the four free video modules on Introduction to Lean, The Ten Commandments of Continuous Improvement, VSM Overview, and 5S Overview. New modules in the School of Lean include the 5S Numbers Game and Skills Matrix modules. Jean Cunningham, author of Shingo Prize-winning Real Numbers and well-known expert on lean accounting, continues this theme with her article in this newsletter, Financial Worries? Take Action with Lean Now! The Superfactory LinkedIn group has just reached And finally, yes, Superfactory is on Twitter. Follow us to receive updates on new Evolving Excellence blog posts, Superfactory content, general commentary... and since I love wine and live in one of the world's great wine regions, some of my - Kevin Meyer |
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Manufacturing Excellence NewsStories of interest to the lean community.
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In the Evolving Excellence BlogJoin over 5,000 readers who get their daily dose of blunt manufacturing and business reality by subscribing to the Evolving Excellence blog!
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Featured Book
By Matthew E. May In this thought-provoking exploration of why certain events, products, and people capture our attention and imaginations, Matthew E. May examines the elusive element behind so many innovative breakthroughs in fields ranging from physics and marketing to design and popular culture. Combining unusual simplicity and surprising power, elegance is characterized by four key elements—seduction, subtraction, symmetry, and sustainability. In a compelling, story-driven narrative that sheds light on the need for elegance in design, engineering, art, urban planning, sports, and work, May offers surprising evidence that what’s “not there” often trumps what is. |
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Featured Article
By Jean Cunningham, Jean Cunningham Consulting Many are currently quaking in their boots about the viability of their company during this confusing and complex global economic downturn? All of us are worried about cash since it is the grease that makes our business engine run smoothly, and now more than ever, we need to maximize its availability and use it prudently. Further, since applying lean thinking to processes often conserves cash, you probably should ask, “How can our lean efforts help us RIGHT NOW?” While lean at a macro level is a long term culture transformation, there are focused actions to consider when trying to free up cash. This article provides a few suggestions on how to conserve cash or use it very wisely to maintain your business engine so it does not sputter or even seize up and stop! Only Make What You Can Sell Scrutinize every production order to ensure it is for items that are needed based on true customer demand. Ensure you are not producing items based on production orders created by the MRP system using potentially outdated forecasts. Reduce your batch sizes to match the demand rate. Often batch sizes are set to reduce the number of set ups based on assumptions that the equipment needs to be kept running all the time, or based on maximum internal capacity. Unfortunately demand is usually lower than capacity, so you should decrease your batch sizes and increase your set ups so that you are not making excess units based on some outdated batch size calculation. Talk to your customers to establish demand. Ensure that their needs and demands are not changing. They are in the same economy, so you do not want to take outdated forecasts and use them to consume your resources. Ensure there is good visibility to your customers real demand rate where ever and as often as possible. Buy Only What You Need Rethink your strategy of finding low cost materials or service suppliers. Look to local suppliers who can offer smaller units more frequently. New customers are also of great value to suppliers right now, so you might also get some very attractive pricing. Even if you pay more for smaller volumes delivered more frequently, it can significantly improve your cash flow. |
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Featured Evolving Excellence Blog Post
So Fair an Opportunity In 1864 some Union soldiers with mining experience dug a long tunnel and placed a huge cache of dynamite under the Confederate lines in front of Petersburg, Virginia, blew it up, and created a crater - and a hole in the Confederate entrenchment - a half mile wide. For an hour the road to Richmond and the end of the Civil War was wide open, but the northern leadership fouled things up, the Confederates recovered, and the Civil War went on for another nine months with tens of thousands of additional causalities. US Grant wrote of the incident, "so fair an opportunity will probably never occur again ...". I am reminded of those words because they so accurately describe this moment in American manufacturing history. We are at a unique crossroads with the automobile industry, and automotive sets the tone for all of American manufacturing. For a few weeks or months GM and Chrysler are in the hands of the UAW and the federal government's automotive task force. They will own fully 89% of GM. They have all of the authority to compel those companies to adopt a Toyota-like model. They can do anything with it they want, and the management that has so stubbornly refused to change, and has so myopically focused on Wall Street's voracious appetite for short term results, can be compelled to take manufacturing seriously, and to look at their business holistically for the first time. The union can look to Toyota's lifetime employment and empowerment philosophies and use their new found power to compel GM to emulate it. The government can look to Toyota's financial results and demand that GM put in place similar business, engineering and factory operating processes. They can pack GM's board and management team with experts from Toyota, Honda and the lean community. They can base GM's compensation and loan repayment terms on achieving benchmarks drawn from a detailed study of successful lean companies. Or those with power can use that authority for their narrow interests. The UAW can revert to and entrench archaic work rules, and the Obama minions can turn the car companies into engines for their environmental agenda without regard for customers and value. |
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© 2009 Superfactory by Factory Strategies Group LLC. All Rights Reserved |
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Welcome to the Superfactory Newsletter!
In Pursuit of Elegance
Financial Worries? Take Action with Lean Now!