It’s a holly-jolly time of year for consumers, who are shopping in droves online and at brick-and-mortar stores across the United States.
In an industry where so much emphasis is placed on boosting productivity, it might seem counterintuitive to name overproduction as the primary source of waste. Yet across most organizations, it consistently is. That’s because the volume of work...
This holiday season, both brick and mortar and online retailers (and those serving their shipping needs) are planning for increased shopping volumes.
What does lean mean? As a concept, it’s more complex and continuous than what will be discussed. The seven or eight wastes of lean are any activity or cost that the customer claims add no value. Waste, in lean terms, is any activity that does not add...
Henry Ford famously said, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black,” a remark that underscored his belief that mass production and fast assembly were necessary in order to build affordable, dependable cars...
In today’s market, manufacturing and assembly operations need to be more agile than ever to stay afloat. Operations need more than just efficient systems– they need equipment that minimizes downtime with as little cost to maintain and replace as...
When it comes to warehouse productivity measures, our industry tends to zero in obsessively on the picking function. Look at the metrics: we calculate and compare pick speeds, track hourly production vs. cost per pick per SKU, map inventory movement,...
There are many different ways to optimize your warehouse. Choosing the best method ultimately depends on who you serve, what your product mix looks like, and what your specific points of pain are. However, there are fundamental areas that you can...
The core idea of lean manufacturing is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Simply, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources. The term "lean" was coined to describe Toyota's business during the late 1980s by a...
