Lean Math Figuring To Improve

Lean transformations are decidedly more challenging when the math is inconsistent with lean principles, misapplied, or just plain wrong. Math should never get in the way of a lean transformation, but instead should facilitate it. Lean Math is the indispensable reference for this very purpose. A single, comprehensive source, the book presents standard and specialized approaches to tackling the math required of lean and six sigma practitioners across all industries—seasoned and newly minted practitioners alike. Lean Math features more than 160 thoughtfully organized entries. Ten chapters cover system-oriented math, time, the “-ilities” (availability, repeatability, stability, etc.), work, inventory, performance metrics, basic math and hypothesis testing, measurement, experimentation, and more. Two appendices cover standard work for analyzing data and understanding and dealing with variation. Practitioners will quickly locate the precise entry(ies) that is relevant to the problem or continuous improvement opportunity at hand. Each entry not only provides background on the related lean principles, formulas, examples, figures, and tables, but also tips, cautions, cross-references to other associated entries, and the occasional “Gemba Tale” that shares real-world experiences. The book consistently encourages the practitioner to engage in math-assisted plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycles, employing approaches that include simulation and “trystorming.” Lean Math truly transcends the “numbers” by reinforcing and refreshing lean thinking for the very purpose of Figuring to Improve. REVIEWER COMMENTS “Hamel and O’Connor provide both the novice and experienced lean practitioner a comprehensive, common-sense reference for lean math. For example, I know that our Lean Support Office team would have gladly used dozens of Lean Math entries during a recent lean management system pilot. The concepts, context, and examples would have certainly helped our execution and provided greater clarity during our training activities. Lean Math is a must have book for Lean Support Office people!” —Dave Pienta, Director, Lean Support Office, Moog, Inc. Aircraft Group “A practical math book may sound like an oxymoron, but Lean Math is both pragmatic and accessible. Hamel and O’Connor do an excellent job keeping the math as simple as possible, while bringing lean principles to the forefront of the discussion. The use of insurance and healthcare industry examples especially helps simplify the translation for lean practitioners in non-manufacturing industries. Readers will be able to use the numerous tables and figures to clearly illustrate and teach lean concepts to others. Lean Math is a reference book that every lean practitioner or Black Belt should have in their library!” —Peter Barnett, MBB, Liberty Management System Architect, Liberty Mutual Insurance “Lean Math is a comprehensive reference book within which the lean practitioner can quickly find straightforward examples illustrating how to perform almost any lean calculation. Equally useful, it imparts the importance of the relevant lean principal(s). While coaching some recent transformation efforts, I put Lean Math to the test by asking several novice practitioners to reference it during their work. They were promptly rewarded with deeper insight and effectiveness—a reflection of this book’s utility and value to the lean practitioner.” —Greg Lane, international lean transformation coach, speaker, and author of three books including, “Made-to-Order Lean: Excelling in a High-Mix, Low-Volume Environment” “While the technical, social, and management sciences behind lean must be learned by doing, their conceptual bases are absolutely validated by the math. This validation is particularly crucial to overcoming common blind spots ingrained by traditional practice. Hamel and O’Connor’s text is a comprehensive and readable resource for lean implementers at all levels who are seeking a deeper understanding of lean tools and systems. Clear diagrams and real-world examples create a bridge for readers between theory and practice—theory proven by practice. If math is the language of science, then Lean Math is indeed the language of lean science.” —Bruce Hamilton, President, Greater Boston Manufacturing Partnership, Director Emeritus for the Shingo Institute “Mark and Michael have done a tremendous service for the lean community by tackling this daunting subject. There are so many ways to quantify value, display improvement, and define complex problems that choosing the right methods and measures becomes an obstacle to progress. Lean Math helps remove that obstacle. Almost daily, operations leaders in every industry need the practical math and lean guidance in these pages. Now, finally, we have it in one place. Thank you.” —Zane Ferry, Executive Director, National Operations, QMS Continuous Improvement, Quest Diagnostics “Too many lean books dwell on principles, but offer little to address critical how-to questions, such as, ‘How do I use these concepts to solve my specific problem?’ With plain English explanations, simple illustrations, and examples across industries, Lean Math bridges a long-standing gap. Hamel and O’Connor’s Lean Math is sure to become a must-have reference for every lean practitioner working to improve performance in any modern workplace.” —Jeff Fuchs, Executive Director, Maryland World Class Consortia, Past Chairman, Lean Certification Oversight Committee “Lean Math fills a huge gap in the continuous improvement library, helping practitioners to translate data, activities, and ideas into meaningful information for effective experimentation and intelligent decisions. This reference comes at a critical time for the healthcare industry as we struggle to improve quality, while controlling costs. Though we don’t make widgets, our people, processes, and patients will benefit from the tools provided in this reference. The numerous examples, as well as the Gemba Tales scattered throughout the book, bring life to the principles and formulas. Lean Math is impressive in both scope and presentation of content.” —Tim Pettry, Senior Process Improvement Specialist, Cleveland Clinic “Lean Math is a great book for those times when only the correct answer will do. The math, along with the Gemba Tales, are helpful for those in the midst of the technical aspects of a transformation, as well as those of us who once knew much of this but haven’t used it in a while.” —Beau Keyte, organization transformation and performance improvement coach, author of two Shingo-Award winning books: “The Complete Lean Enterprise” and “Perfecting Patient Journeys” “Math and numbers aren’t exclusively the domain of six sigma! Toyota leaders describe lean as an organizational culture, a managerial approach, and a philosophy. They also maintain that the last piece of lean is technical methods, which includes the math we need for properly sizing inventory levels, validating hypotheses, gauging improvement, and more. Lean Math is a useful book that compiles important mathematical and quantitative methods that complement the people side of lean. Hamel and O’Connor are extremely qualified to deftly explain these methods. Lest you think it’s a dry math text, there are Gemba Tales and examples from multiple industries, including healthcare, which illustrate these approaches in very relatable ways.” —Mark Graban, Shingo-Award winning author, speaker, consultant, and blogger “When you begin a lean journey, it’s like starting an exercise regimen—the most important thing is to start. But as you mature, and as you achieve higher levels of excellence, rigor becomes increasingly important. Lean Math provides easy, elegant access to the necessary rigor required for effective measurement and analysis and does so in practical terms with excellent examples.” —Misael Cabrera, PE, Director, Arizona Department Environmental Quality

From their initial focus in manufacturing, the industrial engineering principles, tools, and techniques have spread across a spectrum of application areas. Topics covered in this book apply to this continuum of application, including operations planning, safety, quality, production control, inventory management, operations research, supply chain management, and continuous improvement. This edited book comes at an opportune time. It incorporates new knowledge and expertise in a rapidly changing engineering discipline that is a vital force in a wide range of manufacturing, service, educational, and government organizations. Such concepts as lean systems, sustainability, systems thinking, data analytics, and additive manufacturing, as well as utilization of advanced computer software, have further expanded industrial engineering's breadth. Each chapter reflects important aspects of these advances.

Unique coverage of manufacturing management techniques--completewith cases and real-world examples. Improving Production with Lean Thinking picks up where otherreferences on production processes leave off. It is increasinglyimportant to integrate and systematize lean thinking throughoutproduction/manufacturing and the supply chain because the market isbecoming more competitive, products are becoming more complex, andproduct life is getting shorter and shorter. With a practicalfocus, this book encompasses the science and analytical backgroundfor improving manufacturing, control, and design. It coversspecific methodologies and tools for: * Material flow and facilities layout, including a six step layoutdesign process * The design of cellular layouts * Analyzing and improving equipment efficiency, includingPoka-Yoke, motion study, maintenance, SMED, and more * Environmental improvements, including 5S implementation With real-life case studies of successful European and Americanapproaches to lean manufacturing, this reference is ideal forengineers, managers, and researchers in manufacturing andproduction facilities as well as students. It bridges the gapbetween production/manufacturing and supply chain techniques andprovides a detailed roadmap to improved factory performance.

Takt time is calculated as the amount of manufacturing time that is available divided by the volume of orders. In the 1930s, the German aviation industry employed Takt for the first time as a production management tool. The idea was widely used within Toyota in the 1950s, and by the late 1960s, it had been adopted by the majority of the Toyota supplier base. Every month, Toyota assesses the takt for a process, with a modifying review occurring every 10 days. Takt time is used to properly balance supply and demand. It gives a lean production system its beating heart.

This book is not about debits, credits, or accounting theory. It’s about how a chief financial officer (CFO) becomes a Lean CFO to lead the transformation of a company’s management accounting system into a lean management accounting system. It’s been well established in lean companies that traditional management accounting systems do not provide relevant and reliable information to decision makers. The CFO, as steward of a company’s management accounting system, must provide the leadership to improve the quality of the information produced by a company’s management accounting system so it is aligned with a company’s lean strategy, lean operations, and continuous improvement. The integration of a lean management accounting system with a company’s lean strategy will lead to improved decision making by all users and drive long-term financial success. Lean management accounting helps all users, from executives to line managers, better understand the relationships between lean operating performance and financial performance. Written in the style of a practice guide, The Lean CFO is written not just for CFOs, but for all stakeholders of a company’s management accounting system, such as executives and owners, lean leaders, functional managers, and accounting professionals.

Companies all over the world try their best to improve their business by implementing efforts such as Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, or a combination of the two methodologies. Logic would tell you that these two methods would be the right approach because you would have an improvement method that, through Lean, reduces waste and make value flow, while Six Sigma reduces and controls variation. If this were true, then why is it that many of these initiatives simply aren’t delivering quantifiable bottom-line results? After having studied many of these on-going improvement efforts, the author believes that these efforts are missing an important focusing mechanism. That is, most of these improvement efforts attempt to improve "everything" rather than finding that key part of the system that should be assessed and improved, the constraining factor, and then focusing the improvement efforts there and only there. The hallmark of this book is how to first locate this constraining factor and then determine the best way to exploit it to generate extreme profits, radically improve on-time delivery of products or services and increase market share by outperforming your competition at rates you never expected possible. How do we do this? By combining Lean and Six Sigma with the Theory of Constraints. This book demonstrates both the basics of improvement (i.e. results) with the "how to" (i.e. the methodology) in a very simple format that everyone within your organization will understand.

Create New Profits in Any Economy In this difficult economic climate, it's vital to cut waste that can eat at a company's bottom line and boost efficiency at every organizational level. The traditional business solution in a crisis is to slash away non-critical talent and resources, often doing more harm than good. There is a far better systematic approach to doing more with less. As a leading expert on Lean Six Sigma and business transformation, with a deep knowledge of its application in countless areas of business, author Mark George can help you use Lean Six Sigma to analyze your operational needs, identify high-impact opportunities, design and rapidly implement solutions, and create a system that will build efficiency and high performance in every area of your business. The Lean Six Sigma Guide to Doing More with Less can help you: Improve operating margins by as much as 20%, ROIC by as much as 10%, and reduce the costs of goods sold by as much as 5% or more Create "cost intelligence" that uncovers root causes allowing cost reductions without jeopardizing customer service levels and quality Use enterprise speed, agility, and flexibility to drive step-change reductions in cost and enable competitive advantage Identify and eliminate the costs of complexity in your business Supercharge your legacy Six Sigma program, improving speed to results, increasing project values, and shortening completion times With case examples from a wide array of industry, encompassing decades of experience implementing Lean Six Sigma in every economic climate, in companies of every size, The Lean Six Sigma Guide to Doing More with Less will give your business an intelligent edge in lean times.

Making IT Lean: Applying Lean Practices to the Work of IT presents Lean concepts and techniques for improving processes and eliminating waste in IT operations and IT Service Management, in a manner that is easy to understand. The authors provide a context for discussing several areas of application within this domain, allowing you to quickly gain i