Recently I organized a non-commercial Industry 4.0 tour for some friends through my university, the Karlsruhe University of Applied Science. For the first week in July 2019, we rented a van and toured southern Germany. We visited thirteen different locations in five days to understand the current state of Industry 4.0 in Germany. Almost all of these locations were Industry 4.0 award-winning enterprises. However, our assessment of Industry 4.0 often differed from these awards. Since we all come from the lean corner, we often have a different outlook on things than people who specialize in Industry 4.0. Let me give you an overview of our tour: Continue reading Industry 4.0 Tour in Germany – A Van Full of Nerds – Overview and Audi
Happy 6th Birthday, AllAboutLean.com
Oh my gosh, it is six years already and 317 blog posts! Like clockwork every week, one blog post with at least 1,000 words. Time to celebrate again! Many thanks to all for reading and commenting. I am looking forward to keep this up for many more years to come.
Cardboard Engineering – Alternatives
Cardboard Engineering is a quick way to try out different configurations in reality. As the name says, this is done using cardboard. However, there are a few alternatives. Let me show you a portfolio of different ways to make cardboard models with (not only) cardboard, from ultra-cheap to very fancy. Please note that the fancier methods are usually not so well suited for layout optimization, but more for workstation optimization. Continue reading Cardboard Engineering – Alternatives
Cardboard Engineering – Workshop
In my last post I talked about what you need for Cardboard Engineering. In this post I will show you how to do a Cardboard Engineering workshop. Spoiler: Keep in mind that the goal is not to just put something together but to try out different options (and I will repeat this a few times in this post). It is very easy to have fun with cardboard while learning very little about the problem you want to investigate! Continue reading Cardboard Engineering – Workshop
Cardboard Engineering – Preparation
Cardboard Engineering (CBE, sometimes also Cardboard Modeling) is in general the building of models from cardboard. These models are usually quick and inexpensive to build, but often not very durable. In lean manufacturing, these cardboard models are often workstations or entire assembly lines to test different concepts before building the whole thing in more expensive and time-consuming aluminum and steel. This allows faster and easier experimentation with different concepts to improve your production system. Continue reading Cardboard Engineering – Preparation
Mixed Model Sequencing – Summary
Mixed Model Sequencing to manage different product types with different work content is tricky. This is now the twelfth post of this series. I knew it would be long, but I never guessed that it would be that many posts. This is almost a book (and will probably be part of a book in the future 🙂 ). Continue reading Mixed Model Sequencing – Summary
Mixed Model Sequencing – Complex Example Verification
As part of a much larger series on Mixed Model Sequencing, this post describes how to verify the sequence quality. It also describes how to determine the required buffer spaces to buffer against these fluctuations in workload. There may be some wiggle room here. Read on: Continue reading Mixed Model Sequencing – Complex Example Verification
Mixed Model Sequencing – Complex Example Sequencing 2
In this seventh post on Mixed Model Sequencing, I will finish the sequencing of the more complex example with Product-Dependent Workload and Mixed Model Sequencing. This is now the tenth post in this series. I knew this sequencing topic was demanding, but even I am surprised how much there is to cover. Thanks for staying with me, and read on. Continue reading Mixed Model Sequencing – Complex Example Sequencing 2