Lean Manufacturing Blog » Lean Manufacturing » Lean Manufacturing in a Small Shop
Lean Manufacturing in a Small Shop
Filed under: Lean Manufacturing · Tags: lean, manufacturing, Shop, Small
25 Responses to "Lean Manufacturing in a Small Shop"
Leave a Reply
Follow Me
Recent Comments
- andrewjparke on Question on Toyota Corp?
"LEAN- removal of MUDA ( waste) from all parts of the process. Toyota famous for …" - F. Pujol Crespell on The Toyota Production System Re-contextualized
"The book starts with a short history of Toyota, with anecdotes that help better …" - Rick Tuttle on Rath & Strong’s Six Sigma Pocket Guide: New Revised Edition
"I have been a long time Rath & Strong pocket guide customer and was uneasy with …" - Robert Morris on Rath & Strong’s Six Sigma Pocket Guide: New Revised Edition
"What we have here in a single volume (in a new revised edition) is a focus on "t…" - da perfesser on Rath & Strong’s Six Sigma Pocket Guide: New Revised Edition
"I've been using this little pocket guide for years in my practice as a Six Sigma…"
Try to to justify all the copmensation of top level management that showed big results in the negative direction. They run the company into the ground, still get paid large amounts of money and the hourly guys are the ones that end up in the soup line when it’s all said and done with. So I see your point how it must be worth it to reward the guys at the top with high salaries since they could have made the company billions. Management that never has to suffer from their mistakes are shit.
Hourly guys are disposable. Anybody can use an impact wrench.
Execs have to show results, big results, or they’re toast. Rick Wagoner was a mistake, and won’t be working again, anywhere.
It’s worth it to pay execs high salaries because a they can potentially make the company billions, way more than what they’re paid.
And then there’s the issue of incentive. Why work harder to make the company more money if the monkeys on the assembly line will make the same?
Unions are shit.
These videos are just teasers. As soon as its starts to get interesting its over!
I agree to a certain extent, however, what has gotten many companies in trouble in the last several years is the “we can hire anybody off the street to do such and such a job”, and when it’s skilled trades related, watch out. Most big company management folks don’t come from the shop floor or even engineering, anymore. They’re numbers people who, in many cases, don’t have a clue how to make something.
You can’t just hire any old schmoo off the street to do the stuff shown in these videos.
dont all you communist types look at things by how it affects the greater good? if laying off 20% of the workforce improves the condition for the remaining 80%, i say its for the greater good of the company and the ones who got laid off should have shown up on time!
wow, a man who went to college and paid attention in economics class! bravo! (thumbs up)
because most executive level people bring years of business and industry experience and knowledge to the team, requiring a large salary to keep them with the company. they are also under much more stress and can lose their jobs over “small” things much easier.
most average joe factory workers, on the other hand, do a job that most anyone can learn in a week or 2. so the salary they are paid is meaningless since if they dont like it, someone else can be in their place in a few days.
Which worker? The one being replaced? Actually that is not good for them to have to leave a cushy job and find work elsewhere. Change sucks.
But for the remaining workers, they get to continue working for a company that is more competitive due to reduced costs and thereby more likely to hold on to existing employment.
Unions didn’t kill GM and Chrysler. Management, focused on the huge profit margins of gas guzzling vehicles today, failed to prepare for tomorrow by developing fuel efficient vehicles.
what about the entitlement mentality of management? How can any one person be worth millions in compensation? If management can make millions a year why can’t hourly guys make a good wage? How about management get paid the same amount the hourly guys do and have the same insurance and pension plans. Is that unreasonable? Unions are such a small part of the problem yet they are the easiest to point the finger at.
Since the industrial revolution, machines have reduced the need for human labor and greatly increased our productivity and quality of production. This has given us the highest standard of living in human history. The worker can now afford goods, tools, and education he would normally not be able to afford.
Instead of workers working in backbreaking, dangerous, dirty and mentally numbing physical labor they can choose jobs in the new knowledge based economy. Of course this requires flexibility.
How is reducing the need for “expensive labor” (aka. firing people) good for the worker?
You sound like a diluted american business owner.
I agree, XCritonX.
good video.
All company’s have responsibilities to 3 groups.
1) The owners or shareholders.
2) The clients.
3) The workers.
If leaning the company can reduce the need for expensive labor it is a good thing. Owners and clients will benefit directly. Workers will benefit from the increased competitiveness of the company. Their jobs will actually be more secure.
If all focus is put on the workers than you will lose clients and investors.This will eventually lead to massive failure of the company. Basic logic.
not all the unions fault dumb-dumb. Toyota guys get paid about the same as UAW.
You dumb ass.
lean manufacturing= job elimination.
Lean does = increased profit if it’s implemented successfully, but that’s just the trick; you’re talking about major transformational change, which is never easy; in fact, it will most likely be the most challenging endeavor a company ever undertakes. It should always be taken extremely seriously. Failure is not an option.
Bingo. Unions can and do kill companies; look at GM and Chrysler. Unions are not an automatic death sentence for a company, but they often take their entitlement mentality far enough to really hurt a company’s ability to be competitive within its industry. You just can’t pander to these union jagoffs when you have to compete with Asian companies; they can manufacture anything for far less than we in the USA can, primarily because of constant unreasonable union demands on their employers.
Line painting is not necessarily a useless exercise. The whole point of lean is to optimize and streamline the system. Compartmentalization (in some cases, this means line painting) eliminates ambiguity about what goes where and what doesn’t go where. In this sense, everyone understands equally how things are done, ie; how the system works. Line painting is a one time expense/exercise that can have a large payoff in terms of efficient organization and therefore efficient operation.
I would think that there are probably more than one reason for lean manufacturing resulting in layoffs, not all of which would be bad. If going lean reduces the need for labor, then that’s good for the company in terms of reduced expenses. Less labor = running leaner.
Lean is sometimes sold to accountants who often disregard legitimate incompatibilities with the manufacturing processes and technology they must use to produce their products…it can work for some but it is not a one size fits all philosophy.
man, i fully inderstand. the manager wants individual hold on our tool carts for eye bolts that we use. it ends up being a wreck. i work in a small shop that is completely overcrowded by display boards. i swear there are display boards covering every square inch of usable space. the boards are poorly organized and oversized.
another example of lean gone bad, the past four years at my manufacturing company. Soon to shut our doors because of a multitude of reasons originating from similar Lean Manufacturing
Lean = good, lean gone bad = LAME –> Lean as Misguidedly Executed. If lean causes layoffs, etc, it’s because the manager doing it has no idea what lean is really all about.
Very true…I’ve seen what happens in a shop that overdoes it…but when key focus points of lean are implemented, it can have a huge impact on your bottom line…but, for instance…”the line painting guy”…a bit overdone, don’t you think? But when people are in “idle mode”..regardless what position they are in…PAINT THE LINES!