Best practice manufacturing with the 20 Keys for continuous operations improvement system

During the development of the 20 Keys for Continuous Operations System, Iwao Kobayashi, the developer, was in close contact with several other famous Japanese engineers. One can imagine that there was not only great competition between them in terms of advancing best practice manufacturing in Japanese industries, but also sharing and mutual learning. Iwao Kobayashi […]

Read More… from Best practice manufacturing with the 20 Keys for continuous operations improvement system

How far do we keep machines and equipment in service?

One often hears arguments like “we have an increasing number of breakdowns because the machine is old” and “the machine has been fully depreciated; it is now time to replace it”. Such arguments are then the basis for capital expenditure projects where the number of breakdowns and depreciating values are argued and supported with various […]

Read More… from How far do we keep machines and equipment in service?

Drum-Buffer-Rope & Key 16 of the 20 Keys Operations Improvement System

Key 16, Production Scheduling, of the 20 Keys Operations Improvement System is about ensuring a consistent, high, level of on-time delivery of products and services. This is done by synchronising Marketing and Sales efforts with manufacturing capabilities and scheduling processes accordingly. One of the methods used is Drum-Buffer-Rope which is a finite scheduling method. It […]

Read More… from Drum-Buffer-Rope & Key 16 of the 20 Keys Operations Improvement System