1300 116 400There are lots of excellent examples where organisations have adopted principles to reduce changeover times. A race car team is probably the most visual and clearly understood. Its where fractions of a second can actually be the difference between losing and winning the race. Teams practice changing tyres, simplifying the process, e.g. having one large nut holding on the wheel instead of 4 or 5 small nuts spread around the wheel. Have the driver stop exactly where he needs to so the Pit Crew don’t have to move.
Work Place Organisation – 5S
One of the most poorly understood and ineffectively used tools in the Lean arsenal is 5S. It is a common misbelief that 5S is just housekeeping.
5S is a tool comprising 5 steps where the descriptor for each step starts with a letter S. Originally, they were Japanese words which have subsequently been translated into English, again all starting with a letter S hence its name 5S.
Why problems occur – An introduction to Root Cause Analysis.
In last month’s article I put forward that “Respect for People,” one of the key pillars in any Lean organisation, was more than being polite and courteous. It was in fact involving your team in the business by giving them an opportunity or even actively encouraging them to solve their problems. In this newsletter, I will briefly describe some of the different problem solving techniques you can use to more effectively coach your people and build trust and enhance how you display “Respect for People”.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T…find out what it means…
RESPECT FOR PEOPLE
Improve your business (Part 4)
Over the past few months we have provided a series of newsletters introducing the business philosophy called Lean Thinking. We have discussed “Value” as a concept from a customer or consumer perspective and concluded the most simplistic way to create Value for our organisations was to eliminate waste.
Improve Your Business (Part 3) – Value of Waste
Waste Elimination – Understanding what TIM WOODS is Costing YOU
In our last Newsletter, we introduced the concept of waste and that this exists in every business. If you are to be competitive by delivering a product or service which the consumer or customers are prepared to pay for while ensuring the organisation makes money, you have to focus on the cost of production or service. We used the acronym TIM WOODS to facilitate the easy remembering of the many different forms of waste.
In this newsletter I will use examples to try and illustrate how much TIM WOODS is costing your business. The examples have been made up, but hopefully they are close enough to reality that it gives you impetus to calculate the cost of some of your waste and provide the stimulus to drive TIM WOODS out of your business so he can take up residence somewhere else. (more…)
Up to 80% of everything we do to make a product or provide a service doesn’t add any value to the customer!
Improve Your Business with Lean Thinking – Waste
In last month’s newsletter we introduced the concept of Lean Thinking as a way of improving your business and stated over coming months we would be developing and sharing some of the concepts and tools used in this philosophy.
Typically an organisation calculates the price of a product or service using the following formula:
Selling Price = Cost of Product or Service + Profit
The West Gate Bridge Disaster
The West Gate Bridge Disaster
On the 15th of October 1970 at 11.50 a.m. a 367-ft. span of the West Gate Bridge collapsed without warning killing 35 men. (more…)
Increase to National Minimum Wage
Annual Wage Review decision by Fair Work Commission has resulted in a 3.3% increase.
Improve Your Business with Lean Thinking
Article by Grant Winter
In today’s business environment competitiveness is constantly increasing, whether it’s the rapidly changing legislative landscape or the greater number of competitors, many of which could be international in nature having much lower cost structures and inputs. Add to this, advances in technology plus the changes in our demographics leads to a very complex and at times unpredictable competitive business landscape.
To keep pace with all of these changes, business owners and leaders in addition to running their companies, must be constantly improving and changing in order to survive financially. You often hear business owners say “even though our business is growing, we are working harder for less return”. (more…)
The True Cost of Work Injuries
The True Cost of Work-Related Injury, Illness and Disease in Australia
Work-related injuries, illnesses and deaths impose real and significant costs on employers, workers and the community.
These include both direct costs and indirect costs. Direct costs include items such as workers’ compensation premiums paid by employers or payments to injured or incapacitated workers. (more…)
