Integrated Waste: Lather, Rinse, Repeat

Admittedly, it has been a while since I checked a shampoo bottle for directions, however, I do recall a time in my life reading:  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  Curiously, they don’t say when or how many times the process needs to be repeated. Perhaps someone can educate me as to why it is necessary to repeat the process at all – other than “daily”.  I […]

Scorecards and Dashboards

I recently published, Urgent -> The Cost of Things Gone Wrong, where I expressed concern for dashboards that are attempting to do too much.  In this regard, they become more of a distraction instead of serving the intended purpose of helping you manage your business or processes.  To be fair, there are at least two (2) levels of data management […]

Critical Process Triggers

Critical Triggers It is inevitable that failures will occur and it is only a matter of time before we are confronted with their effects.  Our concern regards our ability to anticipate and respond to failures when they occur.  How soon is too soon to respond to a change or shift in the process?  Do we shut down the process at […]

Superbowl 45 … and a new launch!

Today, February 6, 2011, is Super Bowl 45 (XLV) where the Pittsburgh Steelers meet the Green Bay Packers.  Historically, the commercials are just as entertaining as the game itself.  I thought this Application made for an interesting “message” delivery service. We are also proud to announce the launch of our digital paper “Versalytics Today“, featuring articles on lean and related […]

Lean Is …

What is lean?  The following definition is from the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership website, http://www.omep.org: Lean Is A systematic approach for delivering the highest quality, lowest cost products with the shortest lead-times through the relentless elimination of waste. The eights wastes that accompanied this definition include: Overproduction Waiting Transportation Non-Value-Added Processing Excess Inventory Defects Excess Motion Underutilized People It is very […]

Achieve Sustainability Through Integration

It’s no secret that lean is much more than a set of tools and best practices designed to eliminate waste and reduce variance in our operations.  I contend that lean is defined by a culture that embraces the principles on which lean is founded.  An engaged lean culture is evidenced by the continuing development and integration of improved systems, methods, […]

Discover Toyota’s Best Practice

I have always been impressed by Toyota’s inherent ability to adapt, improve, and embrace change even during the harshest times.  This innate ability is a signature trait of Toyota’s culture and has been the topic of intense study and research for many years. How is it that Toyota continues to thrive regardless of the circumstances they encounter?  While numerous authors […]

OEE: Planned Downtime and Availability

As a core metric, Overall Equipment Effectiveness or OEE has been adopted by many companies to improve operations and optimize the capacity of existing equipment.  Having completed several on site assessments over the past few months we have learned that almost all organizations are measuring performance and quality in real-time, however, the availability component of OEE is still a mystery […]

Differentiation Strategies and OEE (Part I)

If your competitors are using OEE to manage their processes just like you, how do you plan to establish a unique approach that helps your company to outperform them?  You may be surprised to learn that the perception of process management and control created by high technology OEE solutions can quickly be shattered by the lack of specific process level […]

Pure Genius: Teach, Build, Model

At first I thought this approach seemed to be a little too simplistic as an execution strategy.  On second thought, however, it seemed to be very appropriate to most situations that we may encounter.  It has certainly been a very practical superview for our current project. Teach: Teach the concepts, systems, processes, and procedures that are required to achieve a given goal or […]