Ten Tips to Lean

Lean can be applied to all types of businesses and spans across all facets within your current business.  A lean culture recognizes that waste is everywhere.  A focus on Value Added activities become the norm as waste continues to be identified and eliminated throughout the organization. It’s not just a manufacturing tool. A true lean strategy will lead to the transformation of the […]

Lean Innovation

If Lean Innovation is to become part of the new business norm, then why is that so many companies attempt to emulate what others have done?  Innovation itself implies a sense of newness or differentiation from what was or is.  It seems that “copy cats” are simply looking for the easy way out and call themselves lean in the process. […]

Upcoming OEE Topics – February 2009

The following topics will be featured in an upcoming post, we’ll try to squeeze them in before February 2009 rolls off the calendar.  If you have a topic that you would like to see featured on our site, send an e-mail to LeanExecution@gmail.com. Capacity Planning with OEE:  By definition, it only makes sense to use OEE as an integral part of your […]

OEE and Morale

Is employee morale impacting your OEE?  If so, how much of a concern is it?  As we wrote in one of our recent posts,  “Perhaps the greatest “external” influence on current manufacturing operations is the rapid collapse of the automotive industry in the midst of our current economic “melt down”.  The changes in operating strategy to respond to this new crisis are bound to have an effect on OEE […]

OEE Measurement Error

How many times have you, or someone you know, challenged the measurement process or method used to collect the data because the numbers just “don’t make sense” or “can’t be right”? It is imperative to have integrity in the data collection process to minimize the effect of phantom improvements through measurement method changes.  Switching from a manual recording system to […]

Season Greetings!

We wish all our visitors, past and present, the best of this holiday season.  We look forward to serving you in 2009. Look for our guide to “Lean In Real Time” – scheduled for release in 2009. On behalf of the LeanExecution Advanced Strategy Team, Seasons Greetings and Happy New Year!

Improving OEE: A Hands On Approach

We have explored Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) from several perspectives and how it can be used as an effective performance metric.  The purpose of measuring and monitoring OEE, at a minimum, should be three fold: To ensure the current performance levels are sustained, To identify new opportunities for improvement, To assess the effectiveness of current improvement initiatives. The Culture of Continuous Improvement and […]

OEE For Dedicated – Single Part – Processes

OEE For Dedicated – Single Part – Processes Definition:  Dedicated – Single Part – Process:  A process that produces a single product or slight variations on a theme and does not require significant tooling or equipment changeover events. A single part process is the easiest application for a OEE pilot project.  The single part process also makes it easier to demonstrate […]

Availability and OEE

What is Availability? In its simplest form, availability measures the uptime of a machine or process against the planned production time.  As one of the factors of Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE), Availability is expressed as a percentage.  The uptime is calculated by taking the difference between the planned production time and total duration of the downtime events that occurred during the planned production period. We […]

Variance, Waste, and OEE

Variance is Waste. Variation and OEE are complementary metrics that need to be considered together.