Lean Business Specialists - Nestadt Consulting

Planning

The above are extracts taken from the book "The Lean Toolbox" available through Nestadt Consulting
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Planning

This section of the Lean Tools is broken into 5 parts:-

Scenarios
Why be concerned about Scenarios in a book on Lean Tools? Because conventional forecasting using extrapolation is more likely to lead to mass manufacture. Scenarios are better at picking up possible discontinuities, thereby encouraging a more flexible, lean approach.

Time Pacing
Time Pacing is the undertaking of events such as new product introduction, factory relayout, or staff training at regular intervals. This is as distinct from traditional "event pacing" which waits until action is needed before initiating such change events. Time Pacing is absolutely in line with Lean Operations. It follows the Lean principle of regularity, whereby products are manufactured at regular intervals attempting to make this week's schedule as much like last week's schedule as possible.

Value Focused Thinking
With value-based thinking you begin with constraint-free thinking; what you ultimately want to achieve. With the overall concept or vision of where you want to be in (say) 5 years time, you can then work backwards instead of forwards. This is like the kanban pull system rather than traditional push. Make sure that all decisions and changes (whether layout, machines, people or products) are compatible with this long-term concept.

Policy Deployment and Cross Functional Management
Hoshin is translated as "target plus means", has become a well-accepted way of planning and communicating quality and productivity goals throughout an organisation. It is the emerging method of strategic quality and productivity planning and is used by leading Japanese companies (Toyota, Sony) and by leading Western companies (Hewlett Packard, Proctor & Gamble). The objective is to communicate common objectives and gain commitment throughout the organisation.

Target Costing
Consider the equation:
Cost + Profit = Price

It is traditional to start with the product cost and add a percentage for profit to derive the price. Target Costing, however, begins with the price that it is considered possible to achieve, and subtracts a percentage for profit to derive the target cost. Target Cost = Market Price - target profit.