Category Archives: Quality tools

Cells and High Volumes

Cells and High Volumes: Forget What You Think You Know [the broken link was removed] by Gary S. Vasilash: True cellular manufacturing depends on the cooperation and orchestration of all employees. The reason for this is simple: The objective to … Continue reading

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Using Design of Experiments

How to Institute DOE in Your Company (link broken – removed) by Davis Balestracci: DOE works, but I don’t need to sell that to the readers of this newsletter. But as certain as we all are, no one can deny … Continue reading

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Kaizen Priorities

Kaizen Priorities by Mike Wroblewski: Priority 1: Kaizen your bottleneck station first – If you don’t know what is your bottleneck station, find it. There are many ways to find your bottleneck: all the inventory is piled in front of … Continue reading

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Getting Lean Right

Getting Lean “Right”: 10 Factors to Understand Before Embarking on Your Lean Transformation by Jamie Flinchbaugh: So how is it that such a low percentage of companies that know about lean can turn it into a success? It’s not because … Continue reading

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Boondoggle Rules

Easy Lean from Got Boondoggle: The lean journey is a long, continuous process of learning, experimentation and improvement. … Most of you are smart enough not to buy into this branding of lean. However, there are some short-sighted executives that … Continue reading

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Consumer Idealized Design

Consumer Idealized Design: Involving Consumers in The Product Development Process Interactive Design vs. Reactive “Focus” A consumer design session is characterized by at least three features which distinguish it from a focus group. (1) It requires innovation and interaction from … Continue reading

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Cease Mass Inspection for Quality

Comment in response to, Re-Discovering W. Edwards Deming, a partial quote from that post: Not all of the Deming approach is part of core TPS thinking. In particular, Deming advocated a statistical sampling approach to quality inspection, while Toyota focuses … Continue reading

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Quality Customer Focus

Delivering Two Kinds of Quality [the broken link was removed] by Keith McFarland, Business Week: What do the Japanese take for granted when it comes to quality? They take for granted that things should work as they are supposed to, … Continue reading

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Visible Data

Effective visual signals are important for effective management improvement: lean thinking emphasizes such ideas. Top 5 Rules of Effective Measurement Boards is an excellent post on how to make measurement effective. Take the time to find the important measures and … Continue reading

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Toyota Special Report: Thinking Production System

Toyota Special Report: Thinking Production System [the broken link was removed]. A very interesting article on Toyota’s web site (www.toyota.co.jp). At the 2003 Automotive Parts System Solution Fair, held in Tokyo, June 18, 2003, Teruyuki Minoura, then-managing director of global … Continue reading

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