Every operation needs to understand and eliminate waste. This overview covers types of wastes an operation may face and the family of lean manufacturing techniques that can be used to attack them. The overview includes workshops on the 5Ss, pull manufacturing, and set-up reduction.

Eight discipline problem-solving gives teams and organizations a systematic approach for investigating and solving problems. This workshop covers tools and techniques for each of the eight steps. The workshop can be expanded beyond one day to have teams work through and solve actual problems the organization faces in a facilitated environment.

If problems were always easy to solve, there wouldn’t be any problems. And if problems were always the same, the same approaches to finding the underlying cause would work. But problems aren’t easy to solve and they aren’t the same. Our root cause analysis workshop teaches participants a toolbox of root cause analysis techniques and when to use the techniques. Organizations have the option of having participant teams apply the techniques being learned to specific company problems with facilitation from a Resource Engineering trainer/consultant.

In order to improve the work being done in a process, the process has to be understood. This workshop covers how to analyze the work being done in a process including the calculation of takt times so that the process can be balanced to sales. It also covers the analysis of workflow through process mapping techniques.

In this workshop, you will learn how to conduct both design and process FMEAs as specified by QS-9000. You will leave with specifics on how to form an FMEA team, how to work through the 10 steps of an FMEA, and how to develop custom rating scales to meet your company’s needs. To learn how to eliminate the biggest problems identified through the FMEA process, supplement this with the Mistake-Proofing Workshop.

We all encounter many mistake-proofing techniques over the course of a day, yet few companies use these same error-proofing concepts in their manufacturing processes. Attend this workshop and you will learn simple, inexpensive, yet highly effective techniques to eliminate failures and the resulting defects. To make sure your mistake-proofing efforts are focused on the biggest problems with your products and processes, supplement this with the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis Workshop.

Apply the set-up reduction techniques you will learn in this workshop and gain immediate benefits. Learn how you can increase capacity, eliminate start-up waste, reduce labor costs, and become more flexible and responsive to your customer’s needs. Work through a simulation to see the benefits of reducing set-up times first-hand.

This one-day workshop is ideal for people who are new to SPC or for those who need to learn how to use control charts and other SPC techniques for maintaining process control. Topics include understanding and measuring variation, plotting data, interpreting and taking action using control charts, and process capability concepts. This course feeds into Implementing Process Capability & Control Charts.

Attend this workshop if you are responsible for implementing SPC in your company. You will learn how to set up basic control charts, determine where they should be used in your manufacturing operations, and how to conduct a process capability study. Requires a basic understanding of SPC concepts. If you are new to SPC or just need a refresher class, sign up for the Basics of SPC as well.

The standard SPC techniques based on Shewhart’s work in the 1920s and ‘30s don’t work for all manufacturing situations. This workshop will cover advanced techniques such as how to handle skewed distributions, dealing with tool wear, short-run processes, and how to analyze processes that vary over time. Requires a solid understanding of SPC concepts.

Without a good measurement system, bad products could be shipped unknowingly, good products could be scrapped, or process improvements might be missed. Measurement systems must be accurate, repeatable, reproducible, stable, and linear in order to be reliable. This workshop covers how to analyze a measurement system to understand its variation and to take action if necessary.

Plackett-Burman and Taguchi screening experiment techniques allow the experimenter to efficiently and effectively sort out the process variables that are critical to controlling the output of a process. This workshop covers the basics of designed experiments, how to set up screening experiments, and how to analyze the results from screening experiments.

While screening experiments are a great start to understanding the critical process variables, full factorial experiments, EVOP, and response surface analysis enable us to study the critical process variables and their interactions in more detail. This enables us to optimize the process settings to generate the best process output. In this workshop, we cover how to set up and analyze these DOE techniques.

Data are only useful when they can be collected easily and correctly and when they can be displayed so that we can understand them. Without this, data are likely to only be relegated to the filing cabinet. This workshop will cover how to capture data including how to set up data collection forms and simple tools for displaying data so that it paints a picture for us.

A place for everything and everything in its place – this should be the motto for all organizations When things are left dirty and out of place, the operation suffers – it becomes unsafe; it slows down; and it produces at lower quality levels. Implementing the 5Ss starts with keeping only what’s needed in the workplace but having designated places for everything that is needed. It also involves housekeeping and housekeeping prevention programs to keep the area clean with everyone involved.

TPM involves the whole team in maintaining equipment and in preventing unplanned downtime due to equipment failures. TPM starts with operators conducting preventive maintenance (PM) activities that they have the skills to perform on their equipment. The skilled maintenance force performs the PM tasks their skills are needed for. TPM then evolves to using analysis and predictive methods to determine when equipment is likely to fail so that parts can be ordered and repairs scheduled. The emergency repairs and unplanned downtime go away with a solid TPM program.

It’s not just seeing is believing. Having visual cues such as color-coding and pictures or models of product standards help the workforce perform better. And having graphs of operational performance in the work areas lets the workforce know how they are doing and what needs to be improved. Participants in this workshop will learn visual factory concepts and will leave the workshop with a plan on how to become “visual” in their work areas.

You’ve been hearing a lot about Six Sigma lately. Maybe your customers are even pushing you to do it. But, what really is Six Sigma? Why does your company need Six Sigma and what benefits will be achieved with Six Sigma? This workshop will answer those questions as well as cover what tools you’ll need to implement Six Sigma at your manufacturing site.