Week 10 - 2 Flashcards
What is lean?
The focus of lean is to achieve a flow of perfect quality, in exact quantities, exactly when and where required, at the lowest possible cost
An ultimate aim is to get items or information flowing rapidly and smoothly through processes, operations, and supply networks
Lean is an improvement methodology
Lean thinking Philosophy
Identifying and eliminating all activities that are waste.
Focus on optimal flow throughout the process
Focus on creating value for customers
List and explain the 4 lean waste categories according to Slack et al
Waste from Irregular flow Waiting Time Transport Process inefficiencies Inventory Motion
Waste from inexact supply
Over-production or under-Production
Early or late delivery
Inventory (again but linked to its inexact supply volume)
Waste from inflexible response
Large batches
Delays between activities (Changeover time/waiting)
More variation in activity mix than in customer demands( basically doing more things in a period of time than is required by the demand rate of customer- linked to batching and queuing and in particular Overproduction)
Waste from Variability
Poor reliability of equipment
Defective products or services (Defects)
List and explain the Theory of Constraints
There are 5 stages to this theory:
A philosophy of operations management that focuses attention on capacity constraints or bottleneck parts of an operation
Identify the system constraints - The part of the system that constrains its weakest link, it could be a physical constraint and traditionally it is seen this way with regards to throughput and material flow. However, it can also be a decision making policy constraint with regards to service and information flow.
Decide how to exploit the constraints - Obtain as much capability as possible from the constraints, preferably without expensive changes. Maximise utilisation and waste elimination at this stage.
Subordinate everything to the constraints - The non-constraint elements of the process are adjusted to a level where the constraints are supported to maximum effectiveness.
Elevate to constraint - ´Elevate´ means eliminate. Major changes to the system such as new machinery or system design at this stage.
Start again from step 1 - Do not allow inertia to set in.
Explain why improvement is so important in Operations Management
Operation Managers are judged not only on how they meet their ongoing responsibilities of producing products and services to acceptable levels of quality, speed, dependability, flexibility and cost, but also how they improve the performance of the operations function as well.
Performance improvement is the ultimate objective of operations and process management
Describe 6 key elements of operations improvements
A process spective - Almost all improvement approaches use the idea of seeing the process of creating a particular product or a service as the platform for improvement. (everything with a goal/all actions like getting ready to go to school)
End-to-end processes - Within the above them, further steps can be taken to identify every step from start to finish( end-to-end) to assess whether it adds ´ value´ for customers or not.
Waste identification - All improvement approaches aspire to eliminate waste where waste is an activity that does not add value. Within the end to end process, each step is analysed for waste with the intention of eliminating it through improvement activity.
Reduce process variation - Some important aspects of process performance are measured periodically and then checked for acceptability. Excessive variation in performance is unacceptable as this will cause waste (see categories waste)
Synchronised flow - Items in a process. operations or supply network flow smoothly and with even velocity from start to finish (end-to-end).
Include everybody - The contribution of all individuals in the organization goes beyond ´not making mistakes´. Improvement empowers employees to bring something positive to improving their way of working through creativity and effort. Employees are a valuable source of information and improvement ideas and are critical to maintaining improvement for the long term.
How to find the fixing point fasters
The constraint that needs fixing will have a higher processing time than the rest
List and describe 5 techniques that can be used to help operations improvements
Scatter diagrams
Process maps
Cause and effect diagrams - focus discussion around these models ´themes´ (also a fishbone chart)
Pareto analysis (Prioritizing were you focus)
5 Whys
