Articles

Value stream analysis is conducted typically for one specific product or service family at a time. In order to identify and distinguish families, lean practitioners use what is called a product family analysis matrix (a.k.a. product quantity process matrix (PQPr)). Many times the families can be easily discerned once the matrix is populated, other times, it is more difficult. The application of a dendogram or binary sort, can be helpful in these situations. Value stream analysis and, with it, flow kaizen, is central to any lean transformation and is specific to product or service families.

Born February 29, 1912, Taichii Ohno envisioned a way of working that would evolve into the Toyota Production System (TPS), now known widely as Lean.

Combinations and Permutations How many different poker hands are there? How many different pizza orders can be made? How many different ways can this work schedule be filled out? How many different ways are there to arrange your books in a bookshelf? These are all examples of combinations and permutations. And knowing how to calculate them is a helpful tool for decision making.  The basic equations are: .

Pitch interval (I_p) can be thought of in two ways: 1) as a unit of time representing the (usually) smallest common pitch shared among a range of products, services, or transactions that are being produced, conveyed, performed, or executed by a given resource(s), and 2) as a count of the number of intervals of a common pitch over a period of time, typically a shift or day.

Life happens. Sometimes it rains on wedding days. Sometimes a supplier misses a ship date, and sometimes there are glitches in our processes. The challenge for lean practitioners is what to do about this – especially since all of these things could happen.

It all started when my colleague and I noted that we had used the same data to calculate Cpk, but ended up with different results. This led us down an Alice in Wonderland-like path of Google searching, Wikipedia reading, and blogosphere scanning. After several days of investigation, we determined that there was no consensus on how to properly calculate estimated standard deviation. Knowing that there must be a misunderstanding and that this should be purely an effort based on science, we decided to get to the bottom of this.

Did first-class passengers on the Titanic get preferential treatment during the evacuation? James Cameron’s movie certainly seems to suggest so, but let’s look at the data.

Days inventory on hand, also known as a days of supply, along with inventory turns, is a measure of inventory investment. While turns may be one of the most basic measures of an organization’s “leanness,” days inventory on hand perhaps helps lean practitioners better visualize the magnitude of (excess) inventory and its impact on a value stream’s lead time. This is especially applicable when the notion of inventory extends beyond parts and finished goods to transactional (i.e., files, contracts, etc.) and healthcare (i.e., tests, reports, etc.) value streams.

Situation. A multi-national manufacturer was implementing a lean management system (LMS) in a phased manner within one of their facil

Full time equivalent(s), commonly referred to as FTE(s), represents the number of equivalent employees working full time. One full time equivalent is equivalent to one employee working full time. Typically, FTEs are measured to one or two decimal points. FTEs are NOT people. Rather, FTEs are a ratio of worked time, within a specific scope, like a department, and the number of working hours during a given period of time. As such, an FTE often does not equate to the number of employees actually on staff.