Lean Foundation Courses

Introducing the principles and understanding necessary for staff to understand the goals of a Lean organisation. These courses introduce the major elements of Lean Manufacturing and explain the advantages of implementing them in the work place. In both courses classroom time is kept to a minimum and participants are regularly taken to the work area to review the operation from a lean prospective.

Title	Description
Lean for managers	This half day course is designed for the management group introducing all the key aspects of Lean Manufacturing and the principles of leadership required to manage the process.
3 Day Lean Course	Covering the following key aspects of Lean Manufacturing participants are taken through the following modules, Introduction to Lean Manufacturing The Seven process wastes 5S Visual Management Value Stream Mapping Standardised Work Process Flow Problem Solving The Introduction to Lean Manufacturing module also includes a classroom exercise that demonstrates all of the principles in a simulated factory environment. Each participant receives a full course work book and through practical activities on the shop floor will begin to apply the techniques they have learnt and note real improvement opportunities.
5 Day Lean Course	As for the 3 Day Course with candidates then being divided into project teams and applying their knowledge in solving genuine process problems currently faced on the floor, (these projects will be agreed with management prior to training), then presenting their findings back to the management group. For both the 3 and 5 day course it is highly recommended that a cross section of functions and management levels are included. Ideal group sizes should be between 12 and 14 people.

Dieting and Lean, different story same outcome
17/04/2010
Whilst out with friends at dinner the other day the conversation turned to diets. Turned out that at our table of eight people five of them were on one sort of diet or another. As I listened to the conversation it became apparent that most had been on other diets before with varying degrees of initial success but after a while the initial weight was regained, sometimes with an extra kilo or two.

Now I don’t profess to have an expertise in this field although I have always wondered why, if any particular diet works, there are so many others?

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The Lean Toolbox
02/12/2009
This article first appeared in the Quality Digest Magazine. The author makes a very important point about how just having lean tools does not support a lean change.

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You only get what you measure
24/11/2009
If you truly do get what you measure it is interesting to note that many traditional organisations rely on metrics that are focused on operational features like cost of labour, raw materials and production output vs. sales projection or forecasts. Making decisions in the current business climate on such narrowly defined operation factors, see examples in Table 1, could prove disastrous.

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Enabling Excellence

Lean Foundation Courses