Operational Excellence Tools Blog : Visio

A refreshing outlook on 'New Millennium' Lean

LeanTeam — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:37:00 GMT

USC Consulting Group (www.usccg.com) has written a very thorough whitepaper describing how technology augments traditional Lean methods, but also argues that technology is a requirement to make a full Lean transformation. The link to the document is http://www.usccg.com/Ref/USCMillenniumBroch.pdf.

Podcast of last weekend's radio show on using six sigma to improve energy efficiency

LeanTeam — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 16:31:00 GMT

Podcast of six sigma segment from Corning on last weekend's America's Business with Mike Hambrick show. Again highlights the use of Visio as a tool in implementing process improvements.

Podcast is here.

How Corning used Six Sigma to improve energy efficiency - this weekend's topic on America's Business with Mike Hambrick

LeanTeam — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 01:22:00 GMT

This weekend another radio segment airs on America's Business with Mike Hambrick on how Corning used Six Sigma (DMAIC), supported by Microsoft technology tools such as Visio and our partner Itron, to achieve the following objectives:

§ Assure uninterrupted supply of energy to BSD facilities.

§ Reduce the total direct cost of energy as impacted by consumption and price

§ Reduce consumption through the use of energy management tools and processes.

§ Develop a rigorous sustainable process to manage energy effectively

Here are the details:

Segment Title: Incorporating Six Sigma Methodologies to Develop and Sustain the Business Services Division Energy Management Process

Dates: March 10 – 11, 2007

Interviewees:

1. Jon Arnold – Microsoft - Global Utilities Industry Director | Microsoft Corporation

2. Philip Mezey – ITRON - Senior Vice President of Software Solutions

3. Scott Ryan - Corning – Global Energy Manager

A podcast will be posted here on Monday.

Free Visio trial available from National Association of Manufacturers

LeanTeam — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 04:17:00 GMT

As you know Microsoft Visio is one of the primary tools that can help automate value stream mapping and process analysis. NAM is running a free trial offer for manufacturers, available at http://www.nam.org/s_nam/sec.asp?CID=202321&DID=234872

Lean solutions director Ingo Heel and Just Born Foods profiled on NAM America's Business Radio show this weekend !

LeanTeam — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 23:34:00 GMT

Tune in to the National Association of Manufacturers weekly radio show America's Business with Mike Hambrick this weekend on Feb 10-11 for a segment on Lean Manufacturing. Interviews include Ingo Heel, Lean Solutions Director for Microsoft, and a profile of Just Born Foods' success story presented by USC Consulting Group.

For a list of stations and broadcast times, go to http://www.nam.org/s_nam/doc1.asp?CID=202321&DID=237382

Stay tuned for podacsts after the segment airs!

- Marc from the Lean Team

5s for the Information Worker

LeanTeam — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:33:00 GMT

Over the recent holidays, I embarked on a backup, cleanup, and Office 2007 upgrade for my PC. As part of the process, I realized that it would be a good idea to take a look at the 5s concept from an information worker perpsective, since e-mail and spreadsheets are the "tools" and "dies" used by many in the corporate world today, including many lean practitioners.

Classic definition of 5s, quoted from the iSixSigma glossary at http://www.isixsigma.com/dictionary/5S-486.htm

Seiri - Put things in order (remove what is not needed and keep what is needed)
Seiton - Proper Arrangement (Place things in such a way that they can be easily reached whenever they are needed)
Seiso - Clean (Keep things clean and polished; no trash or dirt in the workplace)
Seiketsu - Purity (Maintain cleanliness after cleaning - perpetual cleaning)
Shitsuke - Commitment (Actually this is not a part of '4S', but a typical teaching and attitude towards any undertaking to inspire pride and adherence to standards established for the four components)

I evaluated the relevance of these concepts for an information worker, and rated my own performance in some of these areas:

1. My laptop, combined with my smartphone and my corporate Exchange server, is essentially my "workspace." I have over 4 gigbytes of e-mail and documents just from the current fiscal year at Microsoft - is my workspace clean and "in order"? Can I find what I need even with a powerful tool such as Windows Desktop Search? How could I use the capabilities of Windows Vista to help find, use, and share information?

2. I am highly mobile and work both with internal Microsoft staff as well as with a variety of external partners and suppliers. Have I chosen the right way to organize, communicate, and publish key data so that the right data is accessible at the right time, online or offline, to the constituents who need it? Are the tools I need at my fingertips? Was I truly using the full capabilities of Outlook, Sharepoint, Groove, and Windows Mobile to make my life easier? I think this point has a lot of commonality with many lean leaders who manage or mentor a virtual team, and face the challenge of reporting data both at the shop floor or even PLC level and doing rollups for executive managment.

3. Have I set up standard processes to automate analysis and reporting, and establish workflows for my virtual team as much as possible?

4. Have I secured my data in such a way as to enable access for the right people while minimizing risk? In many ways this is part of the "sustain" tenet of 5s, and some companies have explicitly added safety and security as a "5s plus" concept.

In an ongoing series, I'll be jotting notes on ways I have found to create simple solutions to some of these challenges using the tools I already have on my desktop. I hope this will helpful for lean or six sigma professionals who face similar challenges.

- Marc from the Lean Team

How Software Can Help Your Lean Program – and You, the Lean Professional

LeanTeam — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 20:05:00 GMT

There is nothing like walking into the “war room” after a kaizen event. I usually see the same thing - butcher paper and sticky notes lining the walls from floor to ceiling. It is the result of people coming together to improve their value streams – the scene is impressive. What I’m less impressed with is what teams do after this event...

I see well-educated, highly trained professionals sitting about six inches from the wall with their laptops hammering in all of the financial and operational data they recorded into Excel and mapping out the value stream in Visio. Sometimes they use a common format, sometimes they don’t. Then they take all of this data, do some “standard” analysis work, and create a management outbrief in Powerpoint. When I ask how long that effort takes, I get answers anywhere from a few days to a few weeks depending on the size and complexity of the value stream, and how many resources are assigned.

To me, this is waste. The work is repetitive, it should be standardized, and people who get paid to solve problems and implement improvements should spend as little time as possible on it.

This is where software comes in…

Software can help streamline the time it takes to enter the data, and automate the repetitive analysis and reporting aspects of this process. You may have already tried to solve this by building something internally, or you may have poked around to see what is out there.

I am fortunate to work closely with a partner that builds a solution for lean professionals. The Orlando Software Group provides a product build on top of the Microsoft Office platform called LeanView.

If you can relate to the above scenario…take 5 minutes and check out their online flash demo: http://www.osgi.com/leanview/lvdemo/index2.php?rid=4.

I’d love your feedback…

-Brian Willson

Microsoft Lean Team