Processes are the heart of every company or organization, but as companies, products and marketplaces became more complex, the demands and expectations of processes become greater and they often fail to effectively meet the company’s or the customers’ needs and objectives. Inefficient business processes can have 5 times the negative impact on the customer over… 
Client Background Recently we had the opportunity to work with a client that doesn’t make or move any material goods. Impact Group does the important work of caring for families that are being relocated because of the jobs of one of the adults. 28 years ago, Laura Herring determined that companies focus completely on the…
The Ideal Lean Process All employees show up to work every day, are motivated, can work at any operation and are constantly looking for ways to improve processes Supplies can be ordered and delivered immediately, in whatever quantities are needed and are defect free Equipment never breaks Processes have no variation and produce defect free…
Product development can include hard-goods, software or new services, and few processes involve as many different departments within a company as product development. As the development effort crosses between departments such as marketing, research, engineering, purchasing, operations and sales there are numerous opportunities for the effort to stall or even reverse direction. This can be…
Do you ever feel like all you do at work is go from meeting to meeting? Is it a challenge to squeeze all of the meetings you are required to attend on your calendar? How many meetings should a healthy company have and when do we cross the line on healthy communications and too many…
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July 10th I presented “What is new in Lean” for the Midwest Manufacturing Leaders. 100 people heard me discuss taking Lean beyond the facility and making your supply chain Lean. My co-presenter was Ray Keefe, recently retired Executive Vice President of Manufacturing for Emerson. If you would like a copy of this presentation send me…
Lean Six Sigma in Hospitals – 5S Visual Management Details: 5S Implementation 1). This HR department hoarded paper. Like many people the HR Specialists felt the messier their desks the busier they must be. It was cultural! Everyone’s desk looked like these pictures. 2) Once we did the initial 5S blitz, we created a 5S…
Finding Cost Reductions in the Value Stream We used Value Stream Mapping to evaluate costs from “Field to Table”. All processing costs were analyzed. The scope was to attack overhead costs and processes that were increasing expenses or reducing sales. “Costs of goods sold” was excluded. Examples of processing costs were distribution direct labor, store…
Inbound Freight Savings Project Outline This project was fundamentally about getting two departments (Purchasing and Logistics) to see the entire process and determine how they could work together to save the company money on inbound freight. Our first objective was to understand the problem and the opportunity. We developed a problem statement. Download PowerPoint Presentation…