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Lean Manufacturing

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2024-08-15

Investing in Industry 4.0 for the Gear Manufacturer/Job Shop (Part 2)

This article requires that the reader be familiar with Job Shop Lean, an approach to adapt the principles of lean manufacturing for a job shop, regardless of its size or industry sector. A job shop typically executes a different schedule every day. Each day’s schedule could have a different mix of jobs, due dates, lot sizes, and number of gear operations. Regardless of all these differences, it is important that the shop receives a feasible schedule that does not exceed available capacity constraints on key resources (machines, labor, materials, dies, etc.).

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2024-07-23

Investing in Industry 4.0 for the Gear Manufacturer/Job Shop (Part 1)

This article requires that the reader be familiar with Job Shop Lean, an approach to adapt the principles of lean manufacturing for a job shop, regardless of its size or industry sector. The following articles will give the interested reader a sufficient background on the many differences between Job Shop Lean and Lean.

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2020-12-02

The Fun Part

In the last blog posting, I covered the importance of developing a Product Specification and getting all the “stakeholders” to agree on what a succ...

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2017-05-01

Can Lean Manufacturing Kill Your Job Shop

The presidents of two manufacturing companies were having a drink in the lobby before the start of their trade association's annual meeting...

PUBLISHER'S PAGE | 2014-09-01

Cracking the WIP

Over the past few months I've talked with several different gear manufacturers who are in the process of upgrading their gear making equipment with modern CNC machine tools. Each of these manufacturers has come to the realization that in order to stay competitive, he needs to streamline operations and become more efficient...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-07-01

You Don’t Know What You Don’t Know

[starbox] If ever a situation cried out for a short, texting-friendly acronym it is the unavoidable problem of “You don’t know what you don’t kn...

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2013-11-01

Lean Resources

The final installment of our Job Shop Lean series includes a wide variety of educational resources to help you continue your own lean journey.

VOICES | 2013-09-01

Letters to the Editor

Readers respond to our "Job Shop Lean" column and the "My Gear is Bigger than Your Gear" article.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2013-08-01

Design of a Flexible and Lean Machining Cell, Part II

Job shops may be ill-advised to undertake a complete reorganization into FLEAN (Flexible and Lean) cells. A FLEAN cell would (i) be flex-ible enough to produce any and all orders for parts that belong in a specific part family and (ii) utilize lean to the maximum extent possible to eliminate waste.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2013-06-01

Design of a Flexible and Lean Machining Cell, Part I

Although a cell is dedicated to produce a single part family, it must have the requisite equipment capabilities, routing flexibility, cross-trained employees and, to the extent possible, minimal external process dependencies. Cells are often implemented in job shops since they provide the operational benefits of flowline production.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2013-05-01

Job Shop Lean - Assembly

The Tiger Team from Hoerbiger looks for ways to cut waste and improve throughput in the company's assembly cell.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2013-01-01

Job Shop Lean

This is the first article in an eight-part "reality" series on implementing continuous improvement at Hoerbiger Corporation. Throughout 2013, Dr. Shahrukh Irani will report on his progress applying the job shop lean strategies he developed during his time at Ohio State University.

VOICES | 2012-10-01

A Quick-Start Approach for Implementing Lean in Job Shops

In the August issue, we examined the lean tools that will and will not work in high-mix, low-volume manufacturing facilities. Now, we will examine how to implement the tools that will work in the job shop with an approach that expands the capabilities of value stream mapping.

VOICES | 2012-08-01

Adapting Lean for High-Mix, Low-Volume Manufacturing Facilities

Why traditional lean manufacturing approaches need to be adapted for job shop environments.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2011-09-01

Real-World Job Training the Lean Way -- And Loving It

Make no mistake -- lean manufacturing is here to stay. And no wonder. As a fiercely competitive global economy continues to alter companies’ “Main Street” thinking, that relatively new dynamic is spurring the need for “I-need-it-yesterday” production output. And for increasingly more industries -- big or small -- that means getting as lean as you can, as fast as you can.

FEATURE ARTICLES | 2009-08-01

Steadfast and Streamlined: Can Lean Soften the Economic Blow

Two high-volume gear production cells grace the shop floor at Delta Research Corporation in Livonia, Michigan. Thanks to lean manufacturing, these cells have never shipped a defective part to a customer since they were developed over three years ago.