Game On – Playing it Safe with Lean

Communicating a concept or methodology in a manner that doesn’t offend the current status quo is likely the biggest challenge we face as lean practitioners and consultants.  In all too many instances it seems that people are open to change as long as someone else is doing the changing. To diffuse opposition and resistance to change, it is essential that everyone understands […]

Agility Through Problem Solving: a Model for Training and Thinking

We tend to use analogies when we are discussing certain topics, introducing new concepts, or simply presenting an abstract idea.  Analogies are intended to serve as a model that people understand, can relate to or identify with, and, more importantly, remember.  Our challenge is to identify a simple model that can be used to teach people to identify and solve problems – a core competency […]

Contingency Plans – Crisis Management in Lean Organizations

Contingency Planning For Lean Organizations – Part IV – Crisis Management In a previous post we eluded that lean organizations are likely to be more susceptible to disruptions or adverse conditions and may even have a greater impact on the business.  To some degree this may be true, however, in reality, Lean has positioned these organizations to be more agile and extremely responsive to crisis […]

Lean Contingency Planning For Lean Operations – IT and the BSOD

Coincidentally, we are having a first hand experience with the Blue Screen of Death or BSOD with one of our laptops today.  The completely unexpected critical system error that renders Windows completely helpless.  If this isn’t on your list of IT concerns, it should be. In our case the error appears to be video related – driver or card.  Most IT […]

Going DEEP with OEE

Does anyone actually look at their daily equipment availability? Instead of using TEEP that is typically based on calendarized availability, looking at the Daily Equipment Effectiveness Performance of your operation may provide some interesting insights. Working overtime due to material or equipment availability occurs many times.  Unfortunately, we find that sometimes these very same machines are idle during the week. A detailed […]

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 […]

OEE for Multiple Parts – Single Machine (Multipart Processes)

How to Calculate OEE for Single Machine and Multiple Parts. Flexible manufacturing provides the advantage of producing many different parts on the same piece of equipment.  The same is true for processes such as stamping presses, molding machines, or machining operations. The first question most often asked is, “How do we calculate OEE for a piece of equipment that is capable of manufacturing multiple […]

OEE, Downtime, and TEEP

We have received several inquiries regarding equipment down time – periods of time when the machine is not scheduled to run.  We consider this to be scheduled down time or idle time and does not affect Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), since no production was planned during this period. OEE measures overall equipment effectiveness during planned production or SCHEDULED up time.  Do […]