Lean uses the 5S technique to eliminate waste by organizing the workplace. It does not matter whether it is a manufacturing facility spread over many acres or your desk! It is very simple, easy to implement and practical. People can easily see the benefits and the results are usually very quick to realise. There are some people who do not see the benefits of having a tidy desk but most can see the benefits of having a tidy and well ordered manufacturing bench etc. The two are exactly the same, you need to get rid of all the rubbish so that you don’t need to work around it and create a system so that everything has an easily identifiable and accessible place and it stay there.
It should be implemented in manageable sections. Try to identify a natural boundary of say a department, office or work area.
The 5S’s are:
1. Sort
2. Straighten
3. Scrub
4. Systemise Information Technology Industry Overview
5. Standardize
1. Sort
Fairly straightforward How To Start A Business From Scratch really!
Categorize all of the items in the area into three R categories
Retain-Items that are essential. Regular use and occasional use
Return-Items that belong elsewhere
Rid-Get rid of all other items
2. Straighten
Everything has a place and there is a place for everything. Move items that are used regularly to where they are needed. Place tools etc in places that do not interrupt the flow. Label items and make everything clear.
3. Scrub
Clean the whole area and then really clean the area. Clean tools, paint walls and sweep floors. It is everyone responsibility, clean equipment helps to highlight problems earlier, leaks on hoses (or pens) will show up sooner, plus a clean environment is usually a safer environment!
4. Systemise
Make sure you implement regular cleaning schedules to keep it that way. Have procedures in place to ensure things do not go back to how they were. For instance make sure that non essential items/tools do not creep back into the workspace.
5. Standardise
Make sure that all workstations/workplace follow the same procedure and enforce it. New routines and ways of working need embedding and this can sometimes take a little time.…
Tag: thinking
Industrial Mining of Used Material – A Forward Thinking Strategy
It seems that the mining industry is always in the news, but it’s not always in the news for the right reasons. In the last couple of years we’ve seen the mining industry become the whipping boy for unions and regulators, along with all their lawyers. We’ve seem coal mining accidents, trapped coalminers, and environmental disasters concerning mining. No, things in the United States have been pretty mellow, but around the world it often seems as if there is a coal mining accident at least every couple of weeks involving many deaths.
And, there have been many issues with the rising cost of metals and Rare Earth Elements or REEs, although lately those high-priced commodities have gotten a little break. Many countries that are less than stellar with the United States on the diplomatic front hold many of the very important minerals and elements that we need for our high-tech industry, and they are literally holding them for ransom. Apparently they’ve learned a lot from the oil cartel OPEC. In Bolivia they have quite a bit of lithium which can be used to make batteries for personal tech toys and hybrid vehicles, and in China 96% of the REEs which are currently being mined.
Maybe the United States needs to start mining some of the electronics that we throw away. All those old computers, laptops, and other devices are being replaced by tablets and smart phones. We should be taking those metals out of those computers, some of which How To Become An Electrician Australia are precious metals and reusing them, and selling off the excess to pay for it all. A mining operation is quite an expensive proposition, and it’s often hard to separate out the elements you need from the compounds and materials that are trapped within.
Philosophically speaking it’s the same problem, you can try to extract the elements from the rocks, or you can take apart a computer and take out the precious metals or Rare Earth Elements that you need. It might serve us well to do this, rather than allowing third world nations and emerging nations to hold us hostage, use extortion tactics, or literally charge us as if ransoming those materials we need to manufacture the next generation of high-tech electronics, smart cars, and personal tech devices. There is a lot of smart recycling going on in the United States today, but it’s not enough.
Americans still throw too many things away that end up in the landfill rather than a destination where they can be made into something else. Indeed, although I am not an environmentalist, I do see Industry And Competitor Analysis Pdf the industrial mining of used materials as a forward way of thinking, and the proper strategy taking us into the 21st century. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.…