- Home
- Process Improvements
Project Tip Go Forward By Working Backwards
Whether you are planning a project in work or in your personal life, or you are responsible for organizing others, this project tip may be for you. Have you ever worked on a job or project and just when it is almost at the finishing point, realize that something was missed or overlooked? You’re not […]
Continue reading1 Tip For More Effective Meetings
In an earlier post I wrote about my pet hates when it comes to meetings and ways I thought could lead to more effective meetings (The ABCs of Good Meetings). Now I would like to add 1 more tip for more effective meetings. 1 Tip for more effective meetings So, I have seen an improvement […]
Continue readingUsing Charts To Help You With Problem Solving
It is well known and well publicized that graphs and charts can be used to demonstrate and present data visually to an audience. The visual of the data can highlight points of data quicker and easier than just numbers in a table. One thing that I have noticed over the years is that when talking […]
Continue readingThe 5 Whys in Root Cause Analysis
The “5 Whys” is a question-asking technique used to determine the root cause of a problem by repeatedly asking the question “why” until the root cause has been identified. The question isn’t asked just 5 times, if you get the root cause after 4 whys you stop, if after 5 whys you don’t have the […]
Continue readingOne button that will boost your personal efficiency
Top Fives I have a faint memory of reading about a statistic regarding how much men like lists (top 5 lists, top 10, etc). At the time I remember believing it to be true because a lot of my friends and I were constantly comparing top fives of pretty much everything. But, this statistic was […]
Continue readingThe ABCs of good meetings
Have you ever walked out of a meeting wondering What was that meeting about? Why was I needed there? What did we discuss? Was that just another meeting about a meeting? What was the point of that meeting? Having worked both for and with a variety of companies and people with varying skills, knowledge and positions […]
Continue readingJust In Time
My first exposure to any process improvements was JIT (Just In Time) Purchasing where goods are purchased and delivered when they are needed and only in the quantities needed. The idea behind this was explained to me (along time ago) by a Warehouse Manager as a way to reduce costs of stocking inventory (storage costs, […]
Continue readingDesktop Tidy
This may be a familiar image, you computer desktop full of icons, folder, files and shortcuts. How often have we searched through rows of icons looking for one file/folder/shortcut? How many times have we sat at someone else’s desk while they searched through the same organised clutter? Ideally, the desktop would only show what is […]
Continue readingThe Trinity – 5s Lean and Six Sigma
I have completed separate projects in 5s Lean and Six Sigma. It was only when asked to explain the differences between them to a person who knew nothing about them that I realized how closely linked they are. An extremely brief, simplistic (non-technical/non-statistical) overview of the 3 are: 5s – Improving workplace organisation, establishing a […]
Continue readingSix Sigma in Plain English
I have been part of several Six Sigma projects in some capacity. One thing I’ve noticed is that Six Sigma is rarely explained to the team. Especially in manufacturing, more and more companies and people are getting involved in Six Sigma, each team has at least one champion who is the Six Sigma expert on […]
Continue readingRoot Cause and Symptoms
‘Root cause’ is a phrase that has been thrown around for a long time, but how often is the difference between root cause and symptoms known? When a problem crops up and we find what went wrong, we will do something to fix the problem or ideally prevent it from happening again. Too often we […]
Continue readingAccurate and Precise
Think about two watches, one that has stopped and one that is always 5 minutes fast. Which one is more precise? Which one is more accurate? Is there a difference? In normal, everyday conversations we use the words accuracy and precision interchangeably and to mean the same thing. This is all well and good in […]
Continue readingThe Relevance Of Takt Time?
Takt Time, or “the drumbeat of production” sets the pace for cycle times so that customer demand is met. Using an assembly line as an example, the cycle time may be the time to move product to the next station. In an ideal world, the takt time and cycle time would be the same to avoid shortages […]
Continue reading