Fixed repeating schedule
Fixed repeating schedule is a key element of the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing. As its name suggests it is a production schedule which is 'unchanging' and repeated perhaps daily or o
Continual improvement process
A continual improvement process, also often called a continuous improvement process (abbreviated as CIP or CI), is an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek
Supply chain responsiveness matrix
A supply chain responsiveness matrix is a tool that is used to analyze inventory and lead time within an organization. The matrix is one of a number of Value Stream Mapping tools The matrix is represe
Obeya
Obeya (from Japanese Ōbeya 大部屋 "large room") originated in the 1990s at Toyota during the G21 (Globe 21st century) Project, while building the Prius. Chief Engineer of the G21 project, Takeshi Uchiyam
Failure mode and effects analysis
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA; often written with "failure modes" in plural) is the process of reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential fail
Cellular manufacturing
Cellular manufacturing is a process of manufacturing which is a subsection of just-in-time manufacturing and lean manufacturing encompassing group technology. The goal of cellular manufacturing is to
Manufacturing supermarket
A manufacturing supermarket (or market location) is, for a factory process, what a retail supermarket is for the customer. The customers draw products from the 'shelves' as needed and this can be dete
Direct clustering algorithm
Direct clustering algorithm (DCA) is a methodology for identification of cellular manufacturing structure within an existing manufacturing shop. The DCA was introduced in 1982 by H.M. Chan and D.A. Mi
Partnerized inventory management
Partner-optimized inventory management, also known as partnerized inventory management or sometimes just the abbreviation PIM is an inventory management technique or model often used in deterministic
Heijunka box
A heijunka box is a visual scheduling tool used in heijunka, a method originally created by Toyota for achieving a smoother production flow. While heijunka is the smoothing of production, the heijunka
Lean startup
Lean startup is a methodology for developing businesses and products that aims to shorten product development cycles and rapidly discover if a proposed business model is viable; this is achieved by ad
Inventory control
Inventory control or stock control can be broadly defined as "the activity of checking a shop's stock". It is the process of ensuring that the right amount of supply is available within a business. Ho
Target costing
Target costing is an approach to determine a product's life-cycle cost which should be sufficient to develop specified functionality and quality, while ensuring its desired profit. It involves setting
Computer-aided lean management
Computer-aided lean management, in business management, is a methodology of developing and using software-controlled, lean systems integration. Its goal is to drive innovation towards cost and cycle-t
Kaizen
Kaizen (Japanese: 改善, "improvement") is a concept referring to business activities that continuously improve all functions and involve all employees from the CEO to the assembly line workers. Kaizen a
The Toyota Way
The Toyota Way is a set of principles defining the organizational culture of Toyota Motor Corporation. The company formalized the Toyota Way in 2001, after decades of academic research into the Toyota
Lean services
Lean services is the application of lean manufacturing production methods in the service industry (and related method adaptations). Lean services have among others been applied to US health care provi
Visual control
Visual control is a business management technique employed in many places where information is communicated by using visual signals instead of texts or other written instructions. The design is delibe
Takt time
Takt time, or simply Takt, is a manufacturing term to describe the required product assembly duration that is needed to match the demand. Often confused with cycle time, takt time is a tool used to de
Production leveling
Production leveling, also known as production smoothing or – by its Japanese original term – heijunka (平準化), is a technique for reducing the mura (unevenness) which in turn reduces muda (waste). It wa
Kanban board
A kanban board is one of the tools that can be used to implement kanban to manage work at a personal or organizational level. Kanban boards visually depict work at various stages of a process using ca
Shadow board
A shadow board is a type of tool board for organizing a set of tools; the board defines where particular tools should be placed when they are not in use. Shadow boards have the outlines of a work stat
Five whys
Five whys (or 5 whys) is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the
Toyota Production System
The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS is a management system that organizes m
Lean manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is a production method aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and to customers. It is closely related to another con
Lean government
Lean government refers to the application of Lean Manufacturing (also known as "Lean") principles and methods to both identify and then implement the most efficient, value added way to provide governm
Overall labor effectiveness
Overall labor effectiveness (OLE) is a key performance indicator (KPI) that measures the utilization, performance, and quality of the workforce and its impact on productivity. Similar to overall equip
Muda (Japanese term)
Muda (無駄, on'yomi reading, ateji) is a Japanese word meaning "futility; uselessness; wastefulness", and is a key concept in lean process thinking, like the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the
Single-minute exchange of die
Single-minute Digit exchange of die (SMED) is one of the many lean production methods for reducing inefficiencies in a manufacturing process. It provides a rapid and efficient way of converting a manu
Industrial dashboard
An Industrial Dashboard is a graphical display of manufacturing information via programming. Much like the dashboard in a car, an Industrial Dashboard shows data collected from a multitude of sensors
Agile manufacturing
Agile manufacturing is a term applied to an organization that has created the processes, tools, and training to enable it to respond quickly to customer needs and market changes while still controllin
Lean enterprise
Lean enterprise is a practice focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. The term has historically been associated with lean manufacturing and Six Sigma (or Lean
Learning Factory
Learning factories represent a realistic manufacturing environment for education, training, and research. In the last decades, numerous learning factories have been built in academia and industry.
Lean CFP driven
Lean CFP (Complex Flow Production) Driven is a new approach which takes into account not only the widely implemented Lean manufacturing, but combines the principles of Lean with the Operating Curve, a
Genchi Genbutsu
Genchi Genbutsu (現地現物) literally translates "real location, real thing”(meaning "the situation onsite") and it is a key principle of the Toyota Production System. The principle is sometimes referred t
Machine operator efficiency
In lean manufacturing, machine operator efficiency (MOE) is the performance of an employee who operates industrial machinery. The operator's efficiency is measured as the time spent producing product
Andon (manufacturing)
In manufacturing, andon (Japanese: アンドン or あんどん or 行灯) is a system which notifies managerial, maintenance, and other workers of a quality or process problem. The alert can be activated manually by a w
5S (methodology)
5S is a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: seiri (整理), seiton (整頓), seisō (清掃), seiketsu (清潔), and shitsuke (躾). These have been translated as "sort", "set in order
Muri (Japanese term)
Muri (無理) is a Japanese word meaning "unreasonableness; impossible; beyond one's power; too difficult; by force; perforce; forcibly; compulsorily; excessiveness; immoderation", and is a key concept in
Frequent deliveries
Frequent deliveries are a largely ignored but powerful way of leveling apparent demand within a supply chain and thereby reducing Mura. What is perhaps not so obvious is that this will reduce inventor
Timeboxing
In agile principles, timeboxing allocates a fixed and maximum unit of time to an activity, called a timebox, within which planned activity takes place. It is used by agile principles-based project man
Lean higher education
Lean Higher Education (LHE) refers to the adaptation of lean thinking to higher education, typically with the goal of improving the efficiency and effectiveness of operations. Lean, originally develop
Lean laboratory
A lean laboratory is one which is focused on processes, procedures, and infrastructure that deliver results in the most efficient way in terms of cost, speed, or both. Lean laboratory is a management
Value-stream mapping
Value-stream mapping, also known as "material- and information-flow mapping", is a lean-management method for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that tak
Cycle time variation
Cycle time variation is a metric and philosophy for continuous improvement with the aim of driving down the deviations in the time it takes to produce successive units on a production line. It support
Just in sequence
Just In Sequence (JIS) is an inventory strategy that matches just in time (JIT) and complete fit in sequence with variation of assembly line production. Components and parts arrive at a production lin
Lead time
A lead time is the latency between the initiation and completion of a process. For example, the lead time between the placement of an order and delivery of new cars by a given manufacturer might be be
No value added
No value added (NVA) is a management term loosely related to the lean manufacturing movement as codified in the 1980s by a landmark MIT study of the automobile industry, which explained lean productio
Overall equipment effectiveness
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) is a measure of how well a manufacturing operation is utilized (facilities, time and material) compared to its full potential, during the periods when it is sched
Sandy Munro
Sandy Munro is an automotive engineer who specializes in machine tools and manufacturing. He started as a toolmaker at the Valiant Machine & Tool company – a General Motors supplier in Windsor. In 197
Inventory
Inventory (American English) or stock (British English) refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation. Inventory management is a di
Nemawashi
Nemawashi (根回し) is a Japanese business informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project by talking to the people concerned and gathering support and feedback befor
Setsuban Kanri
Setsuban Kanri (節番管理) is the name of a production management methodology for make-to-order business companies. More specifically, it indicates a "management system by synchronized process blocks" whic
Smoke testing (lean startup)
A smoke test is a method for determining if there is sufficient customer demand for a given value proposition of a product or service to justify building the actual product or service. This is commonl
The Machine That Changed the World (book)
The Machine That Changed the World is a 1990 book about automobile production, written by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos. This book made the term lean production known worldwide. A
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma is a method that uses a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six
Visual workplace
The visual workplace is a continuous improvement paradigm that is closely related to lean manufacturing, the Toyota Production System (TPS), and operational excellence yet offers its own comprehensive
Workcell
A workcell is an arrangement of resources in a manufacturing environment to improve the quality, speed and cost of the process. Workcells are designed to improve these by improving process flow and el
Poka-yoke
Poka-yoke (ポカヨケ, [poka yoke]) is a Japanese term that means "mistake-proofing" or "inadvertent error prevention". A poka-yoke is any mechanism in a process that helps an equipment operator avoid (yoke
Lean software development
Lean software development is a translation of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the software development domain. Adapted from the Toyota Production System, it is emerging with the support
Lean construction
Lean construction is a combination of operational research and practical development in design and construction with an adoption of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the end-to-end design
Kanban
Kanban (Japanese: カンバン and Chinese: 看板, meaning signboard or billboard) is a scheduling system for lean manufacturing (also called just-in-time manufacturing, abbreviated JIT). Taiichi Ohno, an indust
Demand flow technology
Demand Flow Technology (DFT) is a strategy for defining and deploying business processes in a flow, driven in response to customer demand. DFT is based on a set of applied mathematical tools that are
Lean product development
Lean product development (LPD) is a lean approach to counter the challenges of product development, notably:
* Lack of innovative solutions
* Long development cycle times
* Many redevelopment cycle
Mura (Japanese term)
Mura (斑) is a Japanese word meaning "unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality", and is a key concept in the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the three types of w
Autonomation
Autonomation describes a feature of machine design to effect the principle of jidoka (自働化)（じどうか jidouka), used in the Toyota Production System (TPS) and lean manufacturing. It may be described as "int
CONWIP
CONWIP (CONstant work in process) are pull-oriented production control systems. Such systems can be classified as pull and push systems (Spearman et al. 1990). In a push system, the production order i