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All About Spaghetti Diagrams

Christoph Roser — Tue, 25 Aug 2015 11:00:31 +0000

A spaghetti diagram is a quick and easy way to track distances of parts and people on the shop floor. The name comes from the result looking like a plate of spaghetti. In this post I will explain the details and give some tips and tricks on how to make a good spaghetti diagram. Why ... Read more

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Muda, Mura, Muri: The Three Evils of Manufacturing

Christoph Roser — Tue, 21 Apr 2015 11:00:28 +0000

In its never-ending quest to improve its production, Toyota has identified the three evils of any manufacturing system: waste (muda), unevenness (mura), and overburden (muri). In this post I will explain the concepts behind these three banes of manufacturing. It All Started with a Good Fight(er) The terms muda, mura, and muri (waste, unevenness, and ... Read more

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The Seven Types of Waste (Muda) – Now with 24 More Types of Waste Absolutely Free!

Christoph Roser — Sun, 08 Mar 2015 11:00:55 +0000

One popular and well-known concept of the Toyota Production System is the elimination of waste, in Japanese also called muda (無駄). It is one of the three evils of manufacturing systems, the others being unevenness (mura, 斑) and overburden (muri, 無理). In this post I would like to go through the details of waste with ... Read more

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How a Planned Economy Can Screw Up an Entire Country – Analogy between Cuba’s Communist Economy and Push Systems

Christoph Roser — Sun, 01 Mar 2015 11:00:27 +0000

Over Christmas I escaped the cold weather in Germany and relaxed on the warm beaches in Cuba. Of course, being a lean expert, I was also interested in the Cuban economy. As a communist economy (or more precisely, a socialist economy), it is based on centralized planning. In comparison, the capitalist system of the US ... Read more

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The Hidden and not-so-hidden costs of Inventory

Christoph Roser — Sun, 27 Jul 2014 11:00:21 +0000

Inventory is one of the seven types of waste. There is usually quite a significant cost associated with having inventory, usually much more than what traditional bookkeeping accounts for. Between 30% and 65% of the value of your inventory is spent every year as inventory-related costs! This post looks into more detail at the cost ... Read more

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Cost of Complexity

Christoph Roser — Sun, 27 Apr 2014 11:00:41 +0000

The cost of complexity can significantly impact the bottom line of manufacturing companies. According to A. T. Kearney, the top 30 companies in Germany could earn €30 billion more if they would reduce complexity, increasing their EBIT by three to five percentage points. After discussing the cost of complexity in a previous post, using the Maybach ... Read more

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SMED – Creative Quick Changeover Exercises and Training

Christoph Roser — Sun, 09 Mar 2014 12:00:12 +0000

One popular approach to battle waste is to streamline changeovers. Changing machines from one setup to another is often a time-consuming exercise. Hence, in lean manufacturing, reducing changeover times is a well-known method for improving efficiency. This post will show a number of examples where these quick changeovers (also known as SMED) can be practiced ... Read more

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The History of Quick Changeover (SMED)

Christoph Roser — Sun, 02 Mar 2014 12:00:25 +0000

In the previous post, I explained the basics of a quick changeover. In this post, I will go through the history of quick changeovers (also known as SMED). It is quite interesting to learn how things have developed during the twentieth century. The next post will look at different, unusual ways to teach SMED. This ... Read more

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