Tag: lean

Continuous Improvement in the Maintenance Community

Posted on by Alex Everitt

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The authors of this paper challenge the maintenance community with regards to their role and behaviour within a lean transformation journey. They argue that continuous improvement (CI) is integral to successful lean transformation.

However, their experience in the field has led them to believe that maintenance departments and functions are amongst the most difficult groups to engage in CI.

In this paper they offer suggestions as to why that might be the case and lay down the gauntlet for the maintenance community to rise to the challenge that effective improvement presents.

There is also an excellent blog on Continuous Improvement by Prof. Peter Hines.

Cultech Lean Academy Success

Posted on by Alex Everitt

S A Partners were delighted to award Lean Academy certificates to delegates at Cultech following the successful completion of training and improvement projects funded by the Food and Drink programme. Since being established in 1994, Cultech has become internationally recognised as both an innovator and premium quality manufacturer within the nutritional supplement industry. Future success within their industry will increasingly rely upon innovative products to allow differentiation from competitors. Robust and predictable operating systems will enable Cultech to focus on what will make the difference going forward.

Cultech General Management, Alan Jones, said this about the projects of two groups of delegates,

‘During the course of the projects, both teams used both lean and six sigma tools and techniques in order to reach their proposed solutions, the outcome of which, was a significant cost saving for the company through reductions in labour, material waste and product cycle times.

Supplementary benefits for the company was the personal development of all participants in using lean and six sigma tools and techniques, stakeholder management and team working, which they can apply to other improvement projects.’