l%e designing, muking, marketing, and suppotting processes are tbe majorsources of value for customers. rfa company is to maximize customer value, itstsproducts, orders, and transaction expieraces must be comct, time&, appmpiate, and economical. Companywide commitment to maximizing customer value typically requires significant realignment, treempowemrent, and reengineerlng. Best knmfisbort Cyck Manufdring, Ed Heard, DBA, bas M a t e d revolutionmy management ~rstems in a variety of companics in several countries. Afier an ear8 stint in indurtry and a succesfirl academic career, be mrted a munagenmat education fiwnto belpconrpaniesbecomemon mpett'tive. Ed Heard & Assodatcs, Inc., bas ofies in Nasbvilk, Tennessee, and Wanvicksbire, Engkand.

No abstract

Continuous improvement is all the rage in the world of manufacturing.A few programs get incremental results so fast that improvement looks continuous. Others, however, yield little because they put systems and people under a constant state of tension, demanding ever-better results without providing improvement tools or education. Successful programs rely on repeated, rapid but very systematic, methodology-based, crossfunctional attacks on bite-size plant floor targets.When the goal is continuous improvement, shortcycle kaizen is the gift that keeps on giving, but it is not free. Its price is measured not in dollars, but in the self-discipline it takes to conquer old habits, learn new methodologies, and rigorously adhere to new improvement protocols. Forget your old kaizen paradigm. This is a whole new ball game, and it's played by different rules. * * *Ed Heard, DBA. president of Ed Heard &Associates, Inc., Brentwood,Tennessee. is a manufacturing management innovator; educator; and consultant who helps his wide variety of clients use kaizen and other time-based strategies t o take time and money out of their processes while adding quality and value t o them. Previously, he worked in manufacturing and electronics before becoming a professor at the University of South Carolina.

To many organizations, implementing a work cell is a mystery.A composite of several successful implementations, this case study takes away that mystery, detailing the general thought process and several of the analyses that are required to do so. 0 I999Implementing the first work cell in a SAP long accustomed to repetitively routing large batches through several disconnected work centers is not for the fainthearted. Yet, it does not necessarily require a lot of capital, take a long time, or require a squadron of manufacturing engineers.Quite the contrary, qualified kaizen facilitators, assisted by five-to ten-person cross-functional teams, often do it in five days or less. Others, committed to transferring the technology as well as implementing a cell, routinely do it in ten days or less. In all cases, implementation comprises three phases: preparation, execution, and perpetuation. Preparation for the cell described here started when a kaizen facilitator first visited the target plant, in response to an inquiry from a plant manager. The initial visit served multiple purposes. It introduced the plant's management team to the kaizen event process, allowed the facilitator to assess the plant management's commitment to making the lean leap, and familiarized the facilitator with the plant's products and manufacturing processes.During the initial visit, roughly 60 days before the implementation of the first work cell, the facilitator used several proprietary checklists and templates to help the management team choose a specific target for the initial work cell imple-mentation; define objectives, scope, and boundaries for a team mandate (Exhibit 1); understand kaizen team roles and think about who should be on the initial kaizen team (Exhibit 2); identify the support resources that would be needed (Exhibit 3); and define a six-week get-ready process (Exhibit 4). The initial visit also resulted in a joint conceptual vision of a desirable future plant configuration and a written team mandate for the implementation of the first work cell. MOVING ON TO EXECUTIONPerhaps plan-do-check-act is the most apt description of the way the work cell was implemented, with the lion's share of the time devoted to the "plan" portion of the cycle. Hear-see-do is probably the best description of what went on during the "plan" portion.During the first four days of the work cell implementation, the team heard from the facilitator about the key questions to be asked and answered (Exhibit 5), saw how to use simple graphical and mathematical tools to find those answers, and did the required analyses and design work.During days six through nine, the kaizen team implemented (do), with the help of maintenance, each element of