By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
« Go See, Ask Why, Show Respect ». The words of former Toyota Chairman Fujio Cho, as reported by John Shook in one of his insightful letters on the Lean Enterprise Institute website, sum up very well the principle of « going to the gemba ». Gemba means « the real place », the only place where we [...]

Par Olivier Carré, O2C (olivier.carre@o2c-sc.com)
My colleague, Olivier Carré, presents here different approaches for developing a master schedule in low-medium volume production environments. – XP
Production planning for short or medium production runs is highly difficult today. Just as it is simple to schedule recurring products, it is just as complex to schedule low-recurring or even customized [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)

The sanitary and economic crisis we are living for several months have tremendous effects on supply chains worldwide: disruptions in supply, insolvencies, stockouts of strategic supplies (protective masks, respirators, hydroalcoholic gel, etc.). Entire sectors of economy are jeopardized and will probably never recover the conditions prior the crisis, as in the case [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
When I am working with High-Mix / Low-Volume (HM/LV) manufacturing companies for helping them to improve their dependability, reduce their lead times, and reduce their working capital need, a frequent misunderstanding comes from executives about pulling production from customer demand. As they produce only what their customers are ordering, they believe that [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)

I often read posts on professional social networks which recall us that « Client is King » or « Client is the Boss ». Most of the comments describe situations where it was missed to serve the client as a king, which is considered as a scandal.
I’m always very annoyed by such messages.
Indeed, it is relevant [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Many articles, mostly related to lean principles, insist on « respecting people » as a necessary behavior of managers and leaders. This is often highlighted by quoting Toyota’s leaders, like former president Fujio Cho and is famous slogan « Go see, ask why, show respect ». Showing respect sounds obvious for most of leaders, especially for [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Different mnemonics are used to help people remembering the 8 muda. Recently, I discovered a video using the acronym DOWN TIME for Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Not utilizing talent, Transportation, Inventory excess, Motion, and Excess processing. TIMWOOD is another tip for recalling the 7 wastes of Toyota:  Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Overprocessing, [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
In a recent issue of the newsletter of the French Supply Chain Magazine (#2600 ; 20/11/2017), I found an interesting topic for illustrating the principle of muri. Muda is a well-known concept of lean, which is translated by « non-value-added activity ». Lean thinkers also learn to identify mura and muri. Mura means [...]

We are teaching that « forecasts are always wrong »… and this is true! But, some people take the opportunity of this truth to assert that forecasting demand is useless…

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
For some time, articles and posts about Lean 4.0 are spreading over magazines, blogs and social networks. This idea –  Lean 4.0 – is related to the concept of Industry 4.0, whose promoters explain that the emergence of new advanced technologies like 3D printing, robots, big data, and other digital applications, will [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
The following story makes us understand the deep meaning of the « kaizen spirit ». This text has been written by Nampachi Hayashi when he was 70. Hayashi holds the post of senior technical executive, which is said to be the highest technical post at Toyota Motor Corporation TMC). Since being assigned to the [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Last week newspaper headlines were being monopolized by the Volkswagen issue. I couldn’t read all these articles, but I have read a lot of them. Most of reporters commented the fall of stock prices, how US administration (and those of other countries) and VW’s customers were deceived. Other comments were speculations about [...]

In a previous post I brought some comments about a very interesting survey conducted by Software Advice: Some Key Questions Before Buying An ERP.
Today I strongly recommend you a short book also published by by ERP software consultancy, Software Advice: How to Avoid ERP Implementation Failure?
You can download the book here.

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Some of my missions consist in helping Make-to-Order companies improve their On-Time-Delivery performance (OTD). Generally, these companies set up specific OTD objectives for each department, expecting them to deliver their work on-time. Each department being encouraged for one-time deliveries, it is assumed that everyone will manage things for delivering work-orders on-time, thus [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
I had recently read a very interesting survey conducted by Software Advice, a firm that analyzes ERP Software.  The survey results from an analysis of a sample of interactions between Software Advice and prospective buyers in search of guidance to find the best Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software to fit their needs. Here [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Future is only present that should be put in order. Your task is not to foresee the future, but to enable it.(Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
The S&OP meeting you’re attending to today has been scheduled a year ago: you planned your agenda of this week depending on this obligation. Beyond the fact that you [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
It is often said or written that lean is the elimination of wastes, wastes being defined as non-value-added activities (also called muda). For helping teams to implement lean, we teach them the seven wastes and we expect them to identify and eliminate these wastes in their work area.
Considering lean as « elimination of [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)

As a reminder, a VSM (Value Stream Map) is a graphic representation (map) of material and information flows related to a “value stream”. The same acronym is used to name the Value Stream Mapping process. The value stream is made of all the steps the material flow goes through. Some of these [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
Introduction
Most manufacturing companies strive for enhancing their customer service level, reducing their lead times and reducing their inventories. Two approaches elaborated during the last decades have significantly improved these companies’ ability to take up these challenges:
The advent of information technology allowed computer-aided planning tools to surface. In that respect, J. Orlicky, creator [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)

A lot of my missions consist in helping companies to set up a pull system. It is surprising to see how many of these companies already tried kanban, without managing to keep it going on. In these cases, talking about kanban with teams remembering the failure is always difficult: why would it [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
This article is dedicated to Keith FitzPatrick and all those passionate people who are taking part to the discussion initiated by Keith on the APICS Group on LinkedIn : « Kanban to the masses… not for beer drinking though! »
Kanban is a well-known and powerful method. Kanban is the tool which is needed to [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
When they are talking about their customers’ expectations, all the managers of manufacturing companies say without hesitation products and services quality, short lead times (speed), high customer service level (dependability), and the ability to adjust to the demands (flexibility), in addition to low costs. When they are asked about the evolution [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
The lean approach, often discussed in this blog, is now considered essential for our companies’ competitiveness. At the same time, this approach is becoming more and more criticized. Disappointment is often observed when the results don’t meet the expectations, or don’t last. And sometimes, although the lean approach is presented as human-centered, [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
In most of the recently published books about lean, an 8th waste (muda) is added to the “7 wastes according to Toyota”. Next to over-production, waiting, inventory, corrections, motion, transportation and over-processing, « unused people skills” is indeed mentioned. Blue collars immediately come to mind: appointed only to manufacturing tasks, they are constantly [...]

By Xavier Perrin (xperrin@xp-consulting.fr)
It has been about thirty years that continuous improvement (kaizen) has first started being discussed. In many companies though, kaizen is still considered a management “option”. Operators and employees are not involved in the continuous improvement of performance. Kaizen actions are then led by production, quality or maintenance departments. In other cases, [...]