Value stream mapping gives you the strategic view. Kaizen events execute the fix. CBS walks through how this two-level framework works, from identifying a shared equipment bottleneck to implementing the Kanban scheduling system that eliminated it, and what happened when a major civilian ammunition manufacturer went from 10.5 million to 13 million rounds per day without adding equipment or overhead.
If your continuous improvement program requires constant heroics, it isn’t working. Learn what a sustainable daily management system actually looks like.
Culture isn’t a generational problem — it’s shaped by what leaders tolerate, reinforce, and ignore. In Part 3 of his Operational Excellence series, Bob Morin explains how purpose, standards, and a real learning culture turn operational excellence leadership from a slogan into daily behavior.
Visual management in manufacturing reduces search time, eliminates setup errors, and produces 5–10% productivity gains. CBS explains the 5S framework through a training exercise that makes it stick.
Introduction Every organization that pursues serious operational improvement eventually reaches a milestone worth celebrating. A major reduction in lead time. A quality breakthrough. An efficiency gain that took years to achieve. The team worked hard. The results are real. Recognition is appropriate. And that’s precisely when a particular leadership failure becomes most likely. I’ve spent…
It was happening every 1.1 seconds. At a manufacturing operation that stamped parts from rolled material, the process had an ergonomic problem baked into its design. As each part was stamped out of the roll, it needed to be manually popped free by an operator and stacked. Every 1.1 seconds. Hour after hour. Day after…
Why do capable teams stay busy without getting stronger? In Part 2 of his Operational Excellence series, Bob Morin explains how operational excellence leadership focuses on the real constraint instead of the easy problem — and why leaders have to get on the floor, not lead from a dashboard.
Operational excellence is not a program, a toolkit, or a certification — it’s leadership behavior. In Part 1 of his Operational Excellence series, Bob Morin shares the simplest definition that holds up on a real factory floor and explains why leaders, not tools, decide whether improvement is real.
Most manufacturing operations don’t fail because of bad products or bad people. They fail because the system around the people was never designed to scale. A family-owned manufacturer can build a strong reputation on quality and craftsmanship and still be entirely unable to meet growing customer demand: not because the team isn’t capable, but because…
Data is the lifeblood of modern business. In an increasingly digital world, it’s become an integral part of who we are as companies. We invest time, money, and resources into collecting data, from labor transactions and delivery statistics to quality control and inventory levels. But the crucial question remains: what are we doing with all…
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