Selecting The Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools

Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools offers an easy-to-read and comprehensive review of the most important current industrial improvement tools that every manufacturing or industrial executive, operational manager or engineer needs to know, including which tool to use for a particular type of manufacturing situation. But his book goes beyond a simple comparison of improvement tools to show how these tools can be implemented and supported. Instead, it offers a broader strategic explanation of how they relate to one another, and their relative strengths and weaknesses in the larger context of the entire enterprise. It demonstrates how to use these tools in an integrated way such that they are not just be viewed as another “program of the month? or management fad. Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools guides the use of these individual management tools within the need for aligning the organization, developing leadership, and managing change, all for creating an environment where these tools will be more successfully applied. · Provides an excellent review of the most popular improvement tools and strategies - Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, including 5S, Kanban, Quick Changeover, and Standardization, Total Productive Maintenance, Six Sigma, Supply Chain Management, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance (or Condition Monitoring), and Root Cause Analysis. · Illustrates the use of each tool with case studies, using a fictitious company called "Beta International," which continues its journey to business excellence from author's previous book, Making Common Sense Common Practice · Describes the foundational elements necessary for any tool to work - leadership, organizational alignment and discipline, teamwork, performance measurement, change management, and the role of innovation. · Concludes with a recommended hierarchy for the use of the various tools, and provides enough information so that individual circumstances and issues can be related to these improvement tools, making better decisions and having greater business success.

Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools offers an easy-to-read and comprehensive review of the most important current industrial improvement tools that every manufacturing or industrial executive, operational manager or engineer needs to know, including which tool to use for a particular type of manufacturing situation. But his book goes beyond a simple comparison of improvement tools to show how these tools can be implemented and supported. Instead, it offers a broader strategic explanation of how they relate to one another, and their relative strengths and weaknesses in the larger context of the entire enterprise. It demonstrates how to use these tools in an integrated way such that they are not just be viewed as another “program of the month or management fad. Selecting the Right Manufacturing Improvement Tools guides the use of these individual management tools within the need for aligning the organization, developing leadership, and managing change, all for creating an environment where these tools will be more successfully applied. Provides an excellent review of the most popular improvement tools and strategies - Lean Manufacturing, Kaizen, including 5S, Kanban, Quick Changeover, and Standardization, Total Productive Maintenance, Six Sigma, Supply Chain Management, Reliability Centered Maintenance, Predictive Maintenance (or Condition Monitoring), and Root Cause Analysis. Illustrates the use of each tool with case studies, using a fictitious company called "Beta International," which continues its journey to business excellence from author's previous book, Making Common Sense Common Practice Describes the foundational elements necessary for any tool to work - leadership, organizational alignment and discipline, teamwork, performance measurement, change management, and the role of innovation. Concludes with a recommended hierarchy for the use of the various tools, and provides enough information so that individual circumstances and issues can be related to these improvement tools, making better decisions and having greater business success.

This book describes several of the more common and popular methods, including case studies, being used by manufacturing companies to improve their business. Even before we cover these tools and strategies, we cover several fundamental issues-if present, almost any tool will be effective, but if absent, almost not tool will work, i.e., the need for leadership and several models thereto for creating an environment that brings out the best in people, the need for innovation throughout the organization, including what I call "big innovation" - R&D and new product/process development, but also "little innovation"- using the proper tools in a disciplined way to lower our costs and improve quality so that we have higher margins to pay for the big innovation. We will also cover the use of cross-functional teams in applying these methods, and a process for managing change, as well as a model for measuring performance and demonstrating that operational and business goals have been achieved. Finally, we will review a process that I call business level failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) for identifying the right projects for improvement, and for selecting the right tools for that projects.

We know how important it is for you to have the right tool when you need it. If you're a team leader or facilitator in a manufacturing environment, you've probably been searching a long time for a collection of implementation tools tailored specifically to your needs. Well, look no further. Based on the same principles used to develop Tool Navigator's Master Guide for Teams, here is a group of 40 dynamic tools to help you and your teams implement powerful manufacturing process improvement. This essential resource allows you and your teams to start and complete almost any manufacturing task. The book includes plenty of graphics, charts, illustrations and indexes to help you navigate your way through a problem solving process. In addition, the author gives you relevant background information and an overview of a tool's usage to assist your teams in the proper selection, sequencing, and application of major tools such as JIT, TPM, Process Mapping and Cycle Time Management. To help you and your teams select just the right tool for your problem solving or manufacturing process improvement activities, we've sorted and arranged them into four stages. The real power of this book is that if you use the tools, working your way through the stages, the end result is Customer Satisfaction! The four stages are: process; cycle time; variability; and problem solving. Unlike other tool guides, the Tool Navigator guides are more than just a book of dry definitions. It is a true navigator. Each guide features: Classification of each tool by process application. Description of various applications of the tool. Problem solving phases most applicable for the tool. Ranking of category or work discipline in which the tool is most used. Step-by-step procedures on how to use tool. Examples of the tool's output or result. Useful appendixes and statistical charts. Cross reference index to find tools in The Master Guide for Teams. Boxes that link to other tools in The Master Guide for Teams.

Standardized Work with TWI: Eliminating Human Errors in Production and Service Processes presents the Training within Industry (TWI) program and describes how it can influence and alter one’s understanding of work standardization. Work standardization is the key to eliminating human errors from manufacturing and service processes. Work standardization is not just the creation of job instructions—it is a comprehensive approach in which employees are formally trained and their skills in the area of work improvement are developed by kaizen sessions. With poor instructions, though, the effectiveness of these two key activities in the work standardization process is practically impossible to achieve. The book introduces you to 41 rules for standard work instruction (SWI) preparation. Following these rules will ensure that the instructions in your company are ideally suited to train operators and improve work. The author developed these rules based on his professional experience and practice within the TWI program in more than 120 manufacturing and service enterprises, while creating thousands of SWIs. These rules are a clear set of signposts that will help you develop a correct SWI on the first attempt without any unnecessary correction of errors. The quality of SWIs significantly affects how on-the-job training sessions are run, as well as how work analysis with respect to improvement is conducted.

This book presents some definitions and concepts applied in Latin America on lean manufacturing (LM), the LM tools most widely used and human and cultural aspects that most matter in this field. The book contains a total of 14 tools used and reported by authors from different countries in Latin America, with definition, timeline with related research, benefits that have been reported in literature and case studies implemented in Latin American companies. Finally, the book presents a list of softwares available to facilitate the tools' implementation, monitoring and improvement.

Quality has quickly become one of the most important decision-making factors for consumers. And although organizations invest considerable resources into building the right quality management systems (QMSs), in many instances, the adoption of such quality improvement tools are just not enough. Building Quality Management Systems: Selecting the Righ

Society, globally, has entered into what might be called the "service economy." Services now constitute the largest share of GDP in most countries and provide the major source of employment in both developed and developing countries. Services permeate all aspects of peoples’ lives and are becoming inseparable from most aspects of economic activity. "Quality management" has been a dominating managerial practice since World War II. With quality management initially associated with manufacturing industries, one might assume the relevance of quality management might decrease with the emergence of the service economy. To the contrary, the emergence of the service economy strengthened the importance of quality issues, which no longer are associated only with manufacturing industries but are increasingly applied in all service sectors, as well. Today, we talk not only about product or service quality but have even expanded the framework of quality to quality of life and quality of environment. Thus, quality and services have emerged in parallel as closely interrelated fields. The Encyclopedia of Quality and the Service Economy explores such relevant questions as: What are the characteristics, nature, and definitions of quality and services? How do we define quality of products, quality of services, or quality of life? How are services distinguished from goods? How do we measure various aspects of quality and services? How can products and service quality be managed most effectively and efficiently? What is the role of customers in creation of values? These questions and more are explored within the pages of this two-volume, A-to-Z reference work.