Books - lean manufacturing training and consulting company

Barnes and Noble
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Chris Ortiz brings the experience of over 150 successful kaizen events to the pages of this unique guide. Using clear, succinct, and unambiguous language rather than more general and esoteric terms found in other books, he explains how to implement waste reduction, 5S, time and motion studies, line balancing, quality-at-the-source, visual management, and workstation and assembly line design. Taking a unique approach, the book follows an example of the assembly process for an electric bike including illustrations of nearly every step along the way. Ortiz even includes the most valuable teaching tool of all: past mistakes, how they were overcome, and how to identify and avoid them.

• Presents step-by-step instruction on planning, implementing, and maintaining a successful lean manual assembly line
• Designs an actual assembly line throughout the book to demonstrate each step and concept in detail
• Includes more than 140 figures and illustrations to allow clear visualization of the workstation and line design
• Emphasizes operator and supervisor training to build the proper infrastructure to support continuing improvement
• Explains the importance of management commitment as well as training, accountability, and monitoring

Providing expert guidance that will last long after the consultants have left, Kaizen Assembly supplies the tools you need to make kaizen and lean assembly a permanent fixture at the heart of the shop floor.

Ortiz draws on his experience leading many successful lean transitions and more than 150 kaizen events. He shows you how to prepare for a lean shop floor environment, implement best practice procedures and standards, build executive support, lead kaizen within the factory, and deal with the ups and downs you will inevitably encounter.

Forget theory: This is a step-by-step, what-to-do guide for professionals in the trenches—plant and engineering managers, lean managers and directors, Six Sigma practitioners, and working engineers.

• Seven reasons lean can fail—and how to overcome them
• Establishing successful kaizen programs: champions, events, teams, goals, tracking, and scheduling
• Avoiding early stumbling blocks in data collection, waste removal, and process design
• Getting your operators and supervisors to “buy into” lean
• Training managers, engineers, and new employees
• Promoting flexibility and cross-training
• Using lean to drive growth, not just save money
• Lean leadership made simple: twelve practical techniques, five simple rules—and ten things not to do
• Sample audit, tracking, and time study forms

Today manufacturers need kaizen’s continuous productivity improvement and waste reduction techniques more than ever. Kaizen and Kaizen Event Implementation provides specific, detailed solutions that have proven successful in real manufacturing environments.

Ortiz, author of the best-selling Lessons from a Lean Consultant, covers every element of a successful kaizen program and offers techniques for implementing several key kaizen events. Drawing on his unsurpassed, in-the-trenches experience, he shares powerful insights into changing cultures, gaining management buy-in, training, reporting, follow-up, and much more. Whether you’re a plant manager, director, engineer, or quality specialist, this book will help you make kaizen work.

• Avoid common implementation mistakes
• Find the right champion and establish an effective steering committee
• Create timelines, select teams and leaders, and define objectives
• Use kaizen events to implement 5S, standard work, Kanban, and new line designs
• Includes a chapter-length case study from a real manufacturing firm