The Right Lean Tools for Manufacturing Lean manufacturing has been growing in popularity for quite some time now. While every facility implements it slightly differently, they can all benefit from having the right lean tools for manufacturing. Look at the following key tools and see if your facility is using them properly. 5S Methodologies This is perhaps the most well known lean tool for manufacturing. It has…
Lean manufacturing principles may have originated in manufacturing industries, but in recent years they’ve been used quite effectively in the healthcare industry, too. This topic is covered in a podcast over at Mark Graban’s Lean Blog, in which Graban interviews Paul Plsek, author of the book Accelerating Health Care Transformation with Lean and Innovation: The Virginia Mason Experience. The two discuss Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle,…
Janska, a women’s clothing company that strives to keep all of its manufacturing in the U.S., recently found a way to increase sewing productivity and revenue by using a lean strategy commonly used in industrial manufacturing workplaces: one-piece flow. This method has each person on an assembly line—in this case, each sewer—perform one step of the process and then pass the item off to another person who…