Lean Articles Archives | Productivity

Lean Articles

Introduction To Hoshin Kanri

Hoshin means—Compass/Vision, Kanri means Management. Therefore, Hoshin Kanri can be translated into Policy Deployment, Vision Management, or Strategy Deployment.

As with any metric, Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE)—the powerful core metric used in Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)—can be misunderstood and misused. In fact, we see it grossly misused at times.

Servant Leadership In A Lean Organization

Take a holistic approach to improvement and apply lean techniques across your system-wide value chain—it’s where most of the opportunity is hiding.

Think Outside the Production Box!

Take a holistic approach to improvement and apply lean techniques across your system-wide value chain—it’s where most of the opportunity is hiding.

Sherwin-Williams makes IndustryWeek’s Best List

Congratulations to Sherwin-Williams, a Productivity Inc. client, on earning the 10^th spot on this year’s IndustryWeek 50 Best Manufacturers list.

Congratulations to Johnson Controls Power Solutions!

We would like to congratulate Productivity Inc. client Johnson Controls Power Solutions, Saint Joseph Distribution Center in Saint Joseph, Missouri on being named an Industry Week Best Plant finalist for 2018.

Live at The Ohio State University’s Lean Summit!

This week we are participating in The Ohio State University’s Lean Summit – Leading Through Excellence.

Announcing Our New Brand Identity

Our mission is to "Keep your Enterprise in Motion": helping you stay on the move – improving, reinventing and innovating …

Lean Needs Leaders

Many of our recent posts have focused on leadership. We’re afraid we are beginning to sound like a broken record. […]

#10 White Paper If History Can Teach Us Anything... It's How to Lead

Q. What key activity continues to be undervalued when implementing improvement efforts?
A. Leadership.

#9 White Paper What’s Missing From Your Lean Initiative?

TPM’s integral role, with 5 takeaways to guide your strategy.
Most business owners and general managers recognize just how critically important proper equipment maintenance is, particularly in an asset-oriented work environment.

10 Steps to Foster Innovation and Drive Growth

Innovate or die is a favored phrase among forward thinkers, and though perhaps hackneyed, the notion is exactly in line with the needs of retail today.
As James Vatalaro, a business consultant with Productivity Inc., which practices improving on its namesake for companies in need, noted in his presentation on strategy innovation at the...

Managing Complexity at a Major Insurance Broker

This affinity insurance broker manages policies for 100+ global brands, with millions of new insurance contracts annually covering policyholders in 10+ countries. Its banking, telecommunications, manufacturing, and retail clients offer their...

5 Principles to Align Your Organization Toward Excellence

Lean initiatives must be aligned towards the same objectives, in order to avoid the "bubble effect": a lot of Kaizen events or Lean projects, engaging a lot of people in improvement activities that lack consistency and consequently have no impact on performance.

Blower Failure Case Study – Root Cause Machine Failure Analysis

The goal of Maintenance Improvement is to move away from reactive to a proactive or planned maintenance process. As part of this process, maintenance personnel analyze breakdowns to reveal equipment weaknesses and then modify equipment to improve its operation, maintainability and lengthen equipment life. Root Cause Machine Failure Analysis was introduced to this building products manufacturer’s maintenance reliability team as a method to eliminate a repetitive blower failure.