Eliyahu Goldratt developed different methods on how to manage production systems. These methods are nowadays known as the Theory of Constraints, or TOC for short. One key method described is called Drum-Buffer-Rope, or DBM for short. Similar to Kanban or CONWIP, it aims to constrain the work in progress (WIP) in the system. There is … Read more
Bottleneck detection and management are important in managing or increasing your production capacity. In the first post of this series I talked about fundamentals and improving utilization. The second post looked at the impact of planning on the overall production capacity. This final post in the series will look at the effect of decoupling and the … Read more
In the past I’ve written a few posts with some nifty methods on how to find the bottleneck (The Bottleneck Walk – Practical Bottleneck and The Active Period Method), and some warnings of which methods don’t work. In this post I would like to go into more detail on what to do once you find the … Read more
There is an excellent and highly sarcastic video around by Prof. Dr. Peter Kruse, professor of organizational psychology at the University of Bremen. In this, he describes his Eight Rules for Total Gridlock in the Organization (8 Regeln für den totalen Stillstand). Since these eight rules are quite relevant to the lean change process, I have … Read more
Half a century ago, Toyota started to develop its Toyota Production System, the archetype of every lean manufacturing system. Almost every manufacturing company nowadays seems to try to implement lean manufacturing. At the same time, most also seem to fail miserably, creating a lot of huff and puff with little benefit. However, occasionally there are … Read more
For larger improvement projects with a dedicated project team, there is frequently a “war room,” a conference room where all the project-related information and performance measures are kept. The name sounds cool and gives a certain air of focus to the project. The name, however, comes from war rooms for real wars. Recently I had the … Read more
FiFo lanes are an important part of any lean material flow. They are a very simple way to define both the material flow and the information flow. In this post I want to tell you why to use FiFo, how to use FiFo, and the advantages of FiFo, as well as show you a few … Read more
Manufacturing is an important part of most economies. However, during the development of an economy, manufacturing plays different roles at different times. In fact, manufacturing is a key stepping stone on the road to economic prosperity. During the development from an agricultural society to a service society, nations must go at one point through a … Read more