LEAN MANUFACTURING IMPLEMENTATION / COACHING

Manufacturing companies have a growing need to adopt World Class manufacturing strategies, including Lean techniques. But these efforts are hindered by the absence of technical understanding of Lean, and often there is little agreement on how to get started.

With TCA's capabilities in operations consulting, and a deep expertise in Lean, we will help you overcome the barriers and achieve the benefits of these powerful techniques in a short time. We have the advantage of seeing lean manufacturing implementation problems from a different perspective to introduce creative and effective solutions.

Objectives

Successful implementation of Lean techniques begins with these objectives:

• Provide a course that results in superior coaching to assist your Lean manufacturing implementation

• Educate the management team in Lean technologies and other World Class philosophies

• Plan and carry out pilot applications of Lean technologies

• Instruct an internal resource person in Lean education and World Class training and coordination

• Develop and document plans for expanding and implementing Lean manufacturing systematically

Approach

TCA has designed steps to achieve these objectives with a minimum investment of time and effortt:

TCA Contributions

We support the execution of those steps by:

• Preparing and facilitating a management education and planning workshop

• Helping you structure and document a long-term vision and a pilot Lean manufacturing implementation project

• Preparing and delivering formal pilot team training

• Assisting in the development of secondary orientation and education materials

• Supporting on-the-job training and pilot teams

• Facilitating interim management project reviews

• Educatingan in-house resource person to carry out ongoing Lean training and program management

• Delivering a presentation to summarize observations and recommendations

• Participating in an expansion planning workshop

A critical dimension of TCA's support in implementing Lean manufacturing is training. We believe the key to technical improvement is rooted in understanding and acceptance based on knowledge. Education is the vital element. We honor this belief with carefully developed approaches that reflect modern adult learning models. We enjoy training and see it as our most important tool in assisting client companies through difficult, but necessary changes.

Benefits

An investment in TCA's assistance with Lean manufacturing will yield many benefits:

• You will overcome the inertia or "organizational procrastination" that can delay the move to Lean

• We will help you identify the best possible starting point through carefully selected pilot projects

• Execution of the pilot projects will provide early economic benefits—quality improvement, higher productivity improvement, and waste reduction—which usually offset the entire cost of the pilot project

• Your management team will be knowledgeable in Lean concepts and principles, having seen first-hand the effects of their application

• You will be spared the frustration and expense of false starts

• Expansion can be planned around a core group of grass roots experts—those who planned and implemented the pilot projects can now help other teams in the expansion phase

• Your in-house World Class program coordinator will be capable of training and project management support in the expansion phase

• Expansion will be based on a clear vision of the role Lean can play in addressing vital business needs and opportunities