Manufacturing Magazine June 2018 | Page 43

“ WE ’ VE SEEN INSTANCES WHERE IMPROVEMENT TEAMS PURSUE THE HIGHLY MATHEMATICAL ‘ SIX SIGMA ’ ROUTE TO TRY AND UNDERSTAND A PROBLEM FROM BEHIND A LAPTOP . SPENDING TIME ON THE SHOP FLOOR OBSERVING EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE PROBLEM OCCURS WOULD BE MUCH MORE EFFECTIVE ”

— Tim Murray , Associate Director , Newton
Tim Murray , Associate Director of Newton , said : “ When we first meet many of our clients we find they are frustrated that they ’ ve spent months or years implementing lean manufacturing , but they haven ’ t seen the step change in their profit and loss they were expecting . This isn ’ t because lean is ineffective . In fact , it has many positive aspects and we ’ ve seen numerous examples where the implementation of lean manufacturing has really engaged the workforce and helped improve the culture of the business . “ So why doesn ’ t lean deliver the big cost savings ? Firstly , many of the commonly used lean prioritisation processes are built more on opinion than facts and data . Consequently , improvement effort is often focused on the wrong areas as the monetary value of the problems being tackled is not understood . “ Secondly , even when we encounter businesses that are working on the right areas , we find that complicated problems don ’ t get solved . Often this is because the lean principles are applied to inappropriate settings . For example , we ’ ve seen instances where
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