Wrap Up
Levers for Improving Process
Performance
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Strategic Framework
 What
is “improvement?”
– Strategic position
» Shouldice, Wriston
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Targeting improvement
– Link to financials
» CRU Computer Rentals
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Process Flow Measures
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Key concepts: Flow time, inventory, throughput, process
cost, quality.
Key relation: Inventory = Flow time  throughput
Key management activity: Select process flow measures to
manage for improvement.
Key metric: Net present value, return on total assets.
The basic managerial levers for process improvement are:
1. Increase in throughput (decrease in flow time).
2. Decrease in inventory (decrease in flow time).
3. Decrease in process cost.
4. Improve quality
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Levers for Managing Theoretical Capacity
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Key concepts: Throughput, Capacity, bottleneck resource
Key management activity: Identify and manage bottleneck
resource(s).
Key metric: Contribution margin per unit time on
bottleneck(s).
The basic approaches to increasing the theoretical capacity of a
resource pool can be summarized as:
– Decrease the unit load on the bottleneck resource.
» Work smarter, faster, do it right the first time, or change the product mix.
» Move some of the work content to a non bottleneck resource.
– Increase the size of load batches at a bottleneck resource.
– Increase the scheduled availability of a bottleneck resource (“work
longer").
– Increase the number of bottleneck resource units (“scale of operation"),
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Levers for Managing Theoretical Flow Time
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Key concepts: Critical path, critical activity, theoretical flow
time.
Key management activity: Identify and manage activities on
all critical paths.
Key metric: Length of critical paths.
1. Reduce the work content of an activity on the critical path.
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Eliminate non value-adding aspects of the activity (\work smarter").
Increase the speed at which the activity is done (\work faster").
Reduce the number of repeat activities (\do it right the first time").
2. Move some of the work content off the critical path.
Move work from a critical path to a non-critical path.
Move work from a critical path to the \outer loop" (pre- or postprocessing).
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Levers for Reducing Waiting Time
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Key concepts: Waiting time, flow time efficiency, cycle inventory, safety inventory,
safety capacity.
Key management activity: Manage buffers to reduce waiting time.
Key metric: Waiting time in buffers.
The basic approaches to reducing waiting time can be summarized as:
1. Reduce cycle inventory (reduce batch size).
Reduce setup or ordering cost per batch.
Reduce forward buying.
2. Reduce safety inventory.
Reduce demand variability.
Reduce the replenishment lead time.
Reduce the variability in replenishment lead time.
Pool safety inventory.
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Physical centralization
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Exploit product substitution.
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Use common components.
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Postpone the product differentiation closer to the point of demand.
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Levers for Lean Operations
Key concepts: Waste, non-value adding activities, cellular
layout, demand pull, quality at source.
 Key management activity: Synchronize process flows while
maintaining efficiency. Set up a framework for process
improvement.
1. Synchronizing flows in a plant.
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Reduce batch size (transfer and production)
Level Production and Transfer: Batch size reduction, Heijunka.
Pull rather than push work
Quality at Source
Flexible resources
Cellular layout.
2. Continuous improvement: How to increase visibility of waste at
low cost?
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