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One Up One Down – Approach to Manage Manual Production Lines

Christoph Roser — Tue, 03 Dec 2019 11:00:14 +0000

Production lines have fluctuations. Sometimes production takes longer, sometimes shorter, than the average. This makes the line balancing tricky. Besides using a simple buffer between workstations, it is also possible to adjust capacity. Other approaches I have written about include the rabbit chase and the bucket brigade. Here I present a variation of the bucket ... Read more

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My Workshop Structure for Creative Problem Solving

Christoph Roser — Tue, 29 May 2018 11:00:55 +0000

In lean manufacturing – or in fact, in any kind of production system – you have to solve problems. Depending on the problem, you may need a creative solution and have to access the wisdom of the crowd. For this I have a workshop structure that I frequently use for problems that have lots of ... Read more

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Kanban Card Design

Christoph Roser — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 11:00:54 +0000

A kanban is, in its basics, information to reproduce or reorder parts. Hence, in its most basic form it has to say “make me this part” or “bring me this part.” While such very simple kanban systems are possible, usually it helps to include other information on the kanban card. In this post I want ... Read more

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On the Benefits of a Pencil in Lean

Christoph Roser — Tue, 15 Mar 2016 11:00:53 +0000

In many lean books and other writing, it is often recommended to use a pencil for certain tasks as, for example, the A3 report. Yet, I have seen very few uses of pencil in lean manufacturing in the Western world. Most of the documents are computer printouts based on Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. The few ... Read more

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Pay Attention to Details – Operator Training at Toyota and Scania

Christoph Roser — Tue, 27 Oct 2015 11:00:36 +0000

Often, implementing “lean” means management is picking the latest lean-related buzzword and telling their people to implement it. This is wrong on so many levels. For one, a lean project should always start with a problem, not a solution. On another level, good manufacturing is all about the nitty-gritty details. Both normal operations and improvement ... Read more

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Cycle Times for Manual Processes

Christoph Roser — Tue, 20 Oct 2015 11:00:05 +0000

In my last two posts I described how to measure cycle times. However, for manual processes measuring cycle times is quite different, since the humans that are measured usually strongly dislike being measured. Therefore, it is difficult to measure it directly. There is an alternative to calculate it, but this also has lots of pitfalls. ... Read more

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How to Measure Cycle Times – Part 2

Christoph Roser — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 11:00:15 +0000

This is the second post on how to measure the cycle time of a process. Again, the cycle time is the fastest repeatable time in which you can produce one part. Hence, as part of a series on manufacturing speed measurements I continue with more details on what cycle times really are. This is the ... Read more

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How to Measure Cycle Times – Part 1

Christoph Roser — Tue, 06 Oct 2015 11:00:29 +0000

The cycle time of a process is a key to match the supply with the demand in lean manufacturing. Everybody working on a shop floor knows the term. Yet, I still find that people sometimes confuse what exactly it means. The cycle time is the fastest repeatable time in which you can produce one part. ... Read more

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