In 1926 Henry Ford wrote the book Today and Tomorrow. It's a fascinating book and it's littered with insights that wouldn't be out of play in any modern lean discussion, little wonder since Taiichi Ohno took a lot of inspiration from what Ford did originally as part of a trip to the US, where he was also taken with the way US supermarkets operated ...

Compliance systems can be a pain, all that extra work, the paperwork, the audits, the forms, and reviews. The time that you waste chasing people up to do things they don't feel they should do and of course, getting ready for the big audit from the customer or the certification body when you could be doing your real work right? Chances are if you or...

Often companies when you start talking about asset management you find that companies don't really have a proper asset list, sure they may have a list of capitalised items they have bought that have been added to the 'asset list' but all that is, in reality, is just a set up in the finance ledger to capture depreciation – that's not an asset list. ...

The AS9100 rev D standard for Quality Management Systems for Aviation, Space and Defence organisation's Clause 6.2 is all about setting your quality objectives for the organisation. It is another of the sections which is a "shall" i.e. you must do this to comply with the standard. Interestingly this clause doesn't say "Top Management" will … it say...

Creating flow in your operation is the ideal state if you want to have a lean process. Anything that stops you flowing product (or services) from start to finish in your organisation is something you want to eliminate, if you can't eliminate it completely then you need to minimise it. It is fair to say that in general terms anything that stops your...

One of the things that happen when organisation start to build towards implementing their ISO management systems is that they look at the standard and try to figure out where to start. As people tend to do, they move towards the familiar, the bits they believe they know what to do and start there. They implement non-conformance processes, or risk p...

When organisations think about Information Security and what things need to be in place to achieve their ISO27001 Information Security Management System (ISMS) certifications for some reason they mostly forget about the Human Resources function. That is a little strange when you think about it, your relationship with employees and contractors for t...

As we have mentioned before AS9100 REV D is very much focused on understanding the Risks in your Quality Management System and to your organisation plus how you will handle them. It makes sense, working in the aviation, space and defence industries is risky and the products that come out of those industries are perhaps the some of the highest risk ...

Free Template - Process Tracking Letters Template   We have put together a collection of daily Process tracking letters that you can use to track all of your key business processes daily and monthly. This allows you to have a great visual management tool to measure improvement across your organisation. They are really easy to use - print ...

What would you do if one day your accountant walked in and said Ok boss, we have no money and the bank is going to have to step in. They are going to keep us afloat and let us trade out of the problem, but we need to improve what we do. They want us to increase our productivity, reduce our money tied up in WIP & stock, oh, and they will not let...