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In my last post I talked about hitozukuri for human resources development, and in a much earlier post about monozukuri for making things. But, there is more: Kotozukuri stands for… a lot of different things, most often for the joy and passion to make products. It is not so well known, is often interpreted differently, and may be just a buzzword, but I would like to show you this anyway.
This week we will have a look at another Japanese word that is often used in lean: hitozukuri. You may already know the similar word, monozukuri, to make things. Hitozukuri applies this to people. No worries, I won’t ask you to give birth, but rather tell you how to grow your people. Read on…
In my last post I started looking in more detail on how to turn a car on an automotive assembly line. This is a deep dive in a specialized topic, but I hope it can inspire you in similar issues with your own assembly line. The big question is how to reduce the overall walking distance for all your operators. But, as we will see in this post, it is also a question for tool and material access. Read on!
In this small blog post series I will do a deep dive on one aspect of automotive assembly—namely, how to position the car for assembly. While not all of you assemble cars for a living, understanding the approach on walking distances may be helpful to optimize other production systems. Read on …
In this blog post I would like to introduce another Japanese term used in industry: Mendomi. Used at Toyota and also other Japanese firms, it means to take care of your employees. And, Toyota makes a good effort on this, albeit not flawlessly. Let’s dive deeper on what mendomi means (but don’t expect to find a new religion in there…).
Solutions to problems in lean manufacturing are manifold. However, there are also different ways to approach these problems. In this blog post, I will give you an overview of different ways to structure your problems, so you can match them with an adequate response or problem-solving approach.
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