The Tale of the Speckled Pony Slaughter
November 11, 2009 at 3:50 pm | Posted in Business Improvement Fairy Tale Series | Leave a commentTags: A-Takt It!, Lean Thinking
Once upon a time there was a king who had a factory that made horse saddles. For every different kind of horse, they made a different size saddle. One day a landowner who owned all Speckled Ponies ordered 50 new Speckled Pony saddles. The king was happy and began to make the saddles.
First, his leather cutter cut the leather. Then the leather was piled up high and waited for the seamstress to stitch the leather. But the seamstress was still sewing shoes for another landowner. The cut leather sat for days and days.
Meanwhile, the enemy came into the land and slaughtered all of the Speckled Ponies. The landowner no longer wanted saddles for ponies, now he wanted saddles for his new Morgan horses. Now, the king looked at the leather that had been cut and piled for the speckled pony saddles. It was too small to make Morgan saddles. The king realized that all of that leather and work had been wasted. If it hadn’t taken so long to make the saddles the landowner would have already received and paid for the saddles.
The angry king declared, “We need to reduce throughput time in our factory!”.
MCN’s A-TAKT IT! is a systems approach to reducing manufacturing throughput time. This allows for greater build flexibility, lower material costs, and less waste due to order changes and cancellation.
The king changed the factory so that each piece of leather was cut only when the seamstress was ready to stitch the leather. The saddles were completed and delivered within days of being ordered and there was no more waste.
The Tale of the Honest King
November 4, 2009 at 7:55 pm | Posted in Business Improvement Fairy Tale Series | Leave a commentTags: employee performance planning, training
Once upon a time there was a king who built a castle specially for forgetful people to live. He was happy that he had this safe place for his mother to live and he wanted to build more castles like this for more forgetful people. But he had a problem, the people he found to work in his castle kept leaving to work in other castles. They weren’t happy working for him and he wasn’t sure why. But he knew that he couldn’t build more castles until he could fix this problem and so he declared “We need to figure out how to keep our workers happy!”.
Human Resource systems are instrumental in achieving high employee retention. Employee performance goals, reviews, and training are one aspect. Additionally, creating and executing compensation and vacation plans adds stability for the employee and for cash flow planning.
The king learned how to keep his workers happy by helping them define their career paths, provided training to all, and followed a plan for pay and vacations. The workers were happy with all of the changes. They felt like the king was fair and honest. They liked helping the people who needed them, and so they kept working for the king.
The Tale of the Red Swords
October 29, 2009 at 10:31 pm | Posted in Business Improvement Fairy Tale Series | Leave a commentTags: flow systems, Lean Thinking, process improvement
Once upon a time there was a company that made swords in Michigan. They made very good swords and people from all over wanted their swords. But the company had one problem: they had one very large customer that ordered many, many red swords at one time. When this happened all the company could do was make those red swords, they couldn’t make any more blue or black swords. So, the company made blue and black swords and stored them so they would have them to sell while they made the red swords.
This created the waste of Overproduction. The company had to buy and store extra material and finished swords, and then they had to find them when they were needed.
When the king came to the factory and saw all of the blue and black swords stacked up around the factory he declared “There shall be no more overproduction in my factory!” .
By applying the Lean Manufacturing concepts for a Flow System and exploring the root cause it was determined that the customer didn’t need their red swords all at one time, but just placed their order like that for ease. The company’s problem with overproduction was solved without any additional investment, just a change in processes.
After that, the red swords were scheduled along with the current orders for blue and black swords and throughput at the sword factory went from 30 days to 5 days. And they all lived happily ever after.
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