Matchless Manufacturing Company: An Exercise in Lean Thinking
In this interactive lesson, students use critical thinking to determine the best lean manufacturing initiative when solving problems for the fictitious Batchless Manufacturing Company.
Learners read a brief introduction to in-control and out-of-control conditions and view a series of distribution curves. This is a follow-up to the learning object titled "Quality Basics: Variation."
Learners look through a telescope to see what a company chooses to focus on when making decisions about productivity, reducing waste, retraining, solving problems, and motivating employees.
In manufacturing, controlling the production process is critical. Part of this control is knowing when to make adjustments and when to let the line run. Step onto the production line in our manufacturing plant and learn what process variation is and how it impacts your bottom line.
In this interactive object, learners read a description of value-added and non-value-added activities and then place various work duties into these two categories.
In this module, we'll be introducing you to SIPOC, a powerful tool that can help you improve your business processes. It's a high-level process mapping tool that helps you identify the key components of a process and how they relate to each other. SIPOC diagrams are often used in Six Sigma and Lean methodologies, but they can be useful for any process improvement initiative. We’ll explain the key SIPOC components and demonstrate how to build one. Then, we’ll walk through a few scenarios and let you build your own.
In this interactive object, learners follow six steps for analyzing a process in a manufacturing setting. This activity includes a drag-and-drop exercise and textboxes where learners post their ideas.