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Achieving a 30% Productivity Leap

A Lean Design Studio Special Event

Thursday, July 29, 2021 @ 11:00am Eastern

It sounds too good to be true, right? Could it be that an improvement of this magnitude exists, even for companies that already consider themselves “Lean”? According to author and Lean consultant Gordon Ghirann, a 30% productivity improvement can be expected at a minimum! Improvements of 50% or higher are not uncommon.

The secret (and the subject of this webinar) is what we call “flexing” or what Gordon calls “self-balancing”. The core idea is that if workers can move and work easily up and down the Value Stream or assembly line, a higher percentage of their time can be value-adding instead of being blocked or waiting. The natural imbalances that occur in a Mixed Model workflow can be overcome by moving to where work needs to be done.

There are several styles of flexing or self-balancing, and the one that you choose will depend on your line design and your company culture. At the Lean Design Studio we have our preferences, but we’ll be covering all of the main methods in this webinar.

This webinar is being hosted by the Lean Design Studio, so you’ll need to be a member of our membership site to get access. Links are provided below to get signed up, and there is a free membership level.

Here are some of the topics that we’ll be covering in this webinar:

  • Standard Flexing

    Flexing is a rules-based and disciplined way for workers to move to the workflow bottlenecks, without having to guess where to go. We will cover the rules for this core methodology, our "go to" way of self-balancing.

  • The Bumping Method

    An additional productivity boost can be obtained by not waiting until the work cycle is complete. Bumping means taking over the work from another worker, and "bumping" them to another station. There are some prerequisites for this method to work, which we will cover in the webinar.

  • Helping Out

    The easiest and least obtrusive flexing method is to train operators to simply add value (work) at other stations without bumping the existing worker. We'll cover the conditions under which this method works well.

  • Line Design

    The flexing or self-balancing method is not intended to replace the need for a solid workflow design. We'll be reviewing briefly the Mixed Model Line Design methodology that should be in place before attempting to introduce flexing.

The webinar is hosted by the Lean Design Studio, and here’s how it works:

1. If you are not already a member of the Studio, sign up for a membership by clicking on one of the buttons below. There is a free option.
2. Connect to the webinar by clicking on the link on the Lean Design Studio home page. You will be receiving some reminder emails also as the time approaches.

That’s it!

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Annual Professional