SM5.4 TOC Drum, Buffer, Rope Optimisation Techniques
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) demonstrates the importance of finding and managing the constraint in your business.
This article covers three of the major techniques to optimise any production system around its constraint.
How Kaizen Leads to Continuous Incremental Improvement
Most improvement is an incremental process. It is rare to get something completely right the first time so, over time, we improve parts of the system so as to continue to improve the whole. A Japanese word for incremental improvement is “Kaizen”. Read this article for insights into incremental improvement of your business. Incremental improvement, […]
How Kanban Improves Work Flow
Kanbans are a tool for structuring how work flows into the work-in-progress queues so that workers do not get overloaded and can use their time most effectively. Kanbans, and variations on them, are widely used in software projects (e.g. Scrum and Agile) and manufacturing (e.g. Lean and Six Sigma). Blue Belt
SM5.0 Theory of Constraints (TOC) and your Bottlenecks
The Theory of Constraints (TOC) has probably had more impact on our prizewinning business than any other management gem! We first heard of it when reading that Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon, required all his managers to read the book that introduced ToC – The Goal. Bezos has done OK so must be something in […]
Manage Workflow and the Local Optima Problem
It is a very widely held belief in managing workflow for business that each station in a production line should be working as hard as it can in order to maximise its efficiency. This might be a car assembly line or an accountant’s office processing tax returns using several different stages in the accounting process. […]
C2.5.1 Increase Revenue Increase Throughput
Take Advantage of Agile / Scrum / Kanban to Increase Productivity
In a smaller business there is always plenty to do and many demands on a managers most limited resource; time. Often the owners time is the major bottleneck on the growth of the business (see the introductory article to Theory of Constraints). Plenty of other businesses have struggled with prioritising time before you and several techniques that are very similar have evolved. The three best known of these are named Agile / Scrum / Kanban. Various references cite improvements in team productivity ranging from 25% to 300% by using these methods. This article introduces these concepts and a way of using a free software app named Trello to manage the process. A mix of Yellow and Blue Belt introductory material.
How to Calculate Time to Produce each Product with Takt Time
Takt is the German word for the baton that an orchestra conductor uses to regulate the tempo of the music. Takt time may be thought of as a measurable beat time, rate time or heartbeat.
Takt time is the average time between the start of production of one unit and the start of production of the next unit, when these production starts are set to match the rate of customer demand.
In Lean, Takt time is the rate at which a finished product needs to be completed in order to meet customer demand. Blue Belt
Importance of Small Batches Tool
There are merits to reducing the size of the batches you manufacture and/or hold in stock at any point in time. This might sound counter-intuitive because of the oft-quoted ‘economies of scale’ and the time cost of pulling down tool set-ups and changing them to manufacture another project. But, in the words of the song; “it ain’t necessarily so!” Learn the importance of small batches.
How to Tune Buffer Management
Buffers, used strategically, will enable you to “smooth” out the flow of work through your system. This is important to maximise production.