The operator balance chart, also known as a percent load chart, operator loading diagram, cycle time/takt time bar chart, or line balance analysis graph, provides the lean practitioner with insight into how equalized operation time is among the workers within a given process, line or cell. The line balance rate (LBR), and the related line balance loss rate (which is simply 100% minus the LBR), quantifies how well or poorly the line is balanced.
Here's some often overlooked and misunderstood value stream mapping math.
The lead time ladder has two levels or “rungs.” The bottom rung is the process or processing rung on which the relevant process time is dropped down. This is usually pretty straightforward...unless there is a split or branch in the material, service or knowledge flow within the value stream.
When discussing lean math with other folks, I often get some less than optimal responses. Of course, much of the time it's probably me!
In any case, this is how I would characterize the more non-value-adding responses to the subject.
For millennia, warriors have taken war trophies to commemorate their victories.
Lean quotes, 'laws' and Rules of Thumb; let's get a list going! How many can you add to this list?
A contribution from one of our readers - Troy Bourgeois from Flow Consulting
The 10X ROI (Productivity Improvements in parallel with Sales growth)
One of the things that I have noticed as I look out at the world is – things change.
The weather changes, the tides change, and customer demand changes.
Of these three, variation in customer demand is perhaps of the most interest to lean practitioners, because, after all, if customer demand were constant, the challenge of designing and managing the value stream would be much simpler.
So accepting that in most cases customer demand does change, a sensible follow up questions are: By how much? And is the demand at least stable?
In the fall of 2009, I launched Gemba TalesTM in anticipation of the Kaizen Event Fieldbook. Truthfully, it was something that I was told authors do - “You need to have a blog to promote your book.”
Well, sort of.
Blogs, in my opinion, should emanate less from a marketing imperative and more from a sense of sharing and community. That’s a whole lot more fulfilling.
