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.

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

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

Operational Excellence Tools Blog : process mapping

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

Free Visio trial available from National Association of Manufacturers

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