Before starting any lean or continuous improvment project you should make sure your job shop business has a strong foundation in these five areas.
Accountability is one of the key tennants of a well-run business. Without it, all your continuous improvement activities will fail, and your business will never achieve the success it is capable of.
Blueprints and engineering drawings used on the shop floor need to be rendered so they are usable by workers, with clarity and efficiency in mind.
Learn to treat your labor efficiency like a currency, which can be invested in removing constraints and producing even greater efficiency gains.
It is very valuable to treat Work in Progess (WIP) as a form of debt when examining it in your organization.
One of the fastest ways to improve productivity, capacity, quality, and on-time delivery in a job shop is through the removal of your hidden factories.
First installment of our case studies series, detailing a operational excellence event success with a plasma table.