Are You Suffering from Fragmentation?

When Toyota arrived on the North American manufacturing scene, automakers were introduced to many of Toyota’s best practices including the Toyota Production System (TPS) and the well-known “Toyota Way”.  Since that time, Toyota’s best practices have been introduced to numerous other industries and service providers with varying degrees of success. In simple terms, Toyota’s elusive goal of single piece flow […]

Are you Winning? A Hockey Lesson for Lean Metrics.

The world of sports is rife with statistics and hockey is no exception, especially here in Canada.  Over the past few weeks, local Toronto hockey fans anxiously watched or listened for the results of every Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game – all the while hoping for a win and a shot at making into the playoffs. As has been the case for the past many […]

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 […]

OEE in an imperfect world

Background: This is a more general presentation of “Variation:  OEE’s Silent Partner” published on January 31, 2011. In a perfect world we can produce quality parts at rate, on time, every time.  In reality, however, all aspects of our processes are subject to variation that affects each factor of Overall Equipment Effectiveness:  Availability, Performance, and Quality. Our ability to effectively […]

Variance – OEE’s Silent Partner (Killer)

I was recently involved in a discussion regarding the value of Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).  Of course, I fully supported OEE and confirmed that it can bring tremendous value to any organization that is prepared to embrace it as a key metric.  I also qualified my response by stating that OEE cannot be managed in isolation: OEE and it’s intrinsic […]

OEE and Human Effort

I was recently asked to consider a modification to the OEE formula to calculate labour versus equipment effectiveness.  This request stemmed from the observation that some processes, like assembly or packing operations, may be completely dependent on human effort.  In other words, the people performing the work ARE the machine. I have observed situations where an extra person was stationed […]

OEE, Labour, and Inventory

Almost every manufacturing facility has a method or means to measure labour efficiency.  Some of these methods may include Earned versus Actual hours or perhaps they are financially driven metrics such as “Labour as a Percent of Sales” or as “Labour Variance to Plan”.  As we have learned all too well through the latest economic downturn, organizations are quite adept at using these metrics to […]

The Face of Manufacturing in 2011

Happy New Year! Another year begins with the confidence that the manufacturing sector will continue to recover from the crash of 2008-2009 that continued its unrelenting grip well into 2010.  There is little doubt that the face of industry in North America and around the world has changed but is it really on the rebound? I am of the opinion […]

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: The Means to an End – Differentiation Where It Matters Most

Does your organization focus on results or the means to achieve them?  Do you know when you’re having a good day?  Are your processes improving? The reality is that too many opportunities are missed by simply focusing on results alone.  As we have discussed in many of our posts on problem solving and continuous improvement, the actions you take now […]