Lean Management: What is Catchball?

Our January 2013 newsletter is out, and our topic for the month is Lean Leadership.  One sub-topic within lean leadership is the concept known as catchball.  Anyone who has been involved in a lean transformation knows that a good working relationship and system for communication between upper management, supervision, and front-line workers is critical to success.  Management sets the vision and goals, but the workers actually have the know-how to make improvements to their processes.  Catchball is one technique for making these relationships work.  We've recently created the following video to explain the concept of catchball.

Lean Certification

We are once again offering our Lean Manufacturing Certification training program in Orange County, California beginning next week on August 15th.  We've been running this program since 2003, and it continues to draw a diverse group of participants.  This program, which runs 2 days per month for 4 months, covers all of the major concepts and methodologies within lean thinking: continuous improvement and kaizen, flow and pull, leveling work, standardized work, mistake proofing, problem solving, team facilitation skills, value stream mapping, and breakthrough kaizen events.  If you are unable to attend this program but are still interested in lean manufacturing certification and training, you might consider our online lean manufacturing certification program or our blended-learning (part instructor-led, part online) lean manufacturing certification program.  Our next blended-learning program will take place in San Diego, CA on October 23-25, 2012.  Below is a brief video that talks about our lean training programs.  To learn more about our training programs, visit our Lean Manufacturing Training page.

Lean Manufacturing at Chrysler - Fiat

The Detroit Free Press has a new article out about Chrysler's successful adoption of Fiat's particular brand of lean manufacturing.  This methodology is described as "Fiat's World Class Manufacturing system that is designed to improve quality, safety, and productivity largely by eliminating waste and bottlenecks while boosting employee involvement."   The article explains that this is Fiat's interpretation of the Toyota Production System.  On the surface, this appears to be exactly the right approach to adopting lean / continuous improvement into an organization.  Executives must ask themselves what operational excellence should look like in their organization, and then develop their own "system" for operational excellence.  I believe the system should always include the two principles most closely associated with Toyota's system, "Continuous Improvement" and "Respect for People."  To read the article, visit:

http://www.freep.com/article/20120409/BUSINESS0103/120409042/2-Chrysler-plants-recognized-manufacturing-processes

Lean Leadership plus Announcements

Our February 2012 newsletter is out, and we're talking about a new book on lean leadership. Lean is a new way of doing things- a new and permanent paradigm of continuous improvement. Effective leadership is required for an effective and lasting lean transformation. To learn more, visit: http://www.emsstrategies.com/newsletter020112.htm.

We also have space remaining in our Lean Certification program that begins next Wednesday 2/8 as well as our February Lean Healthcare program. To learn more about these programs, visit our website: http://www.emsstrategies.com/

Lean Problem Solving

EMS Consulting Group's September newsletter is out. In it, we talk about one of the key elements of lean implementation: creating a problem solving culture. At Toyota, bringing problems to the surface and solving those problems to their root causes are key elements to successfully providing the customer with the best quality products at the right time. In our latest newsletter, we talk about how to create a culture that fosters such activities. To check it out, visit: http://www.emsstrategies.com/newsletter090109.htm