The Lean Manufacturing Workshop Series

The Lean Manufacturing Workshop Series, a seven-session workshop, starts with an eight-hour "Introduction to Lean Manufacturing"

The Introduction to Lean Manufacturing workshop presents procedures companies use to identify and eliminate waste to become lean. It also covers a variety of tools that are used and covers such topics as the transparent workplace, lean process improvement, lean product development, Just-in-Time, controlling processes, and continuous improvement.

The introduction course is followed by the remaining six four-hour sessions. Those topics include:

Lean Mapping
This workshop provides the tools for mapping a value stream. It gives a framework and provides practical step-by-step guidance to recognizing value streams and developing current state maps, future state maps, and the action plan.

5-S Workshop
The 5 S method provides a foundation for delivering high-quality products and services in the right quantity at the right time to satisfy customer needs—a perfect starting point for companies to begin their journey toward lean as well as an intermediate step to emphasize the value of workplace organization and process discipline.

Process Improvement and Quality in Lean Manufacturing
Improvement and quality are at the heart of lean. This workshop discusses the PDCA and DMAIC (six sigma) frameworks and the concepts of kaizen, root cause problem solving, the visual factory, the seven tools of quality, and blitz approaches. An improvement framework and sustainability of improvement are discussed.

Lean Scheduling
This workshop covers the essential tools for lean scheduling. After discussing the relationships with MRP II, APS, and factory physics, the workshop describes six building blocks and eight lean scheduling methods including kanban, heijunka, and mixed-model production.

Standard Work
This workshop documents the steps of implementing standard work—a tool to determine maximum performance with minimum waste though the best combination of operator and machine. Standard work helps eliminate variability from the process, functions as a diagnostic device, and exposes problems to facilitate problem solving.

Lean Teams, Lean Design, and Accounting
This workshop covers these three related areas. Lean team types, leadership, skills, and anchor draggers are discussed. Lean design covers concurrent design, value engineering, QFD, and FMEA.