Standardization Leans the Way to High-Mix Automation
An increasingly digitalized, lean manufacturing process begins with a common selection of cutting tools and five-axis machining fixtures.
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The Three Pillars of Reliable Machine Shop Productivity
This shop looks for a systematic convergence of three disciplines in production management.
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Air Casters Keep Shop Floors Damage-Free
Using air casters from AeroGo helps machine tool manufacturer AgieCharmilles, a division of GF Machining Solutions, move equipment around its showroom without denting or scratching its new epoxy floor.
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Lean Manufacturing Means Taking Nothing for Granted
As foreign competition undercut Valtech Corp.'s business throughout the aughts, the company had a choice to make: Switch production to CNC machining for one of its products, or abandon the product line. Starting from scratch with older machine tools has helped the company scrutinize each step of its processes.
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In a Machine Shop, the Labor of Lean is Data-Driven
Approximating single-piece flow in a job shop environment requires an ongoing commitment to analyzing and acting on evidence.
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How To Audit Your Machine Shop Improvements
Here are a few practical approaches for auditing your manufacturing initiatives.
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Continuous Improvement Must Be Continuous
It’s easy to do the work to improve your facility and then want to sit back to see how things go. Unfortunately, this leads to complacency, which is hard to overcome.
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Frequently Asked Questions Regarding Lean Manufacturing
For as long as lean manufacturing concepts have been around, there are some who still do not understand what lean is and why it’s an important part of a continuous-improvement strategy.
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10 Lean Manufacturing Ideas for Machine Shops
In addition to the right mix of traditional strategies, a new lean manufacturing toolkit can make high-mix, low-volume machining faster, more predictable and less expensive.
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Lean and Data-Driven Manufacturing Go Hand in Hand
Lean manufacturing is a never-ending quest to remove waste from processes. This pursuit should put a shop on the path to data-driven manufacturing.
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Lean Manufacturing Begins With Layout, Commitment
Sustainably streamlining production of a varied mix of low-volume work depends not only on a strategy tailored for job shops, but also on human drive and enthusiasm.
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Shops Cite Their One Big Technology Addition
Here are three technologies that participants in our Top Shops benchmarking survey say have been particularly impactful on their machining businesses.
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5S in a Box
Based on this shop’s experience, industrial vending systems and lockers can help kick-start and sustain lean manufacturing initiatives.
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Inventory Systems Boost Lean Manufacturing Efforts
Computerized, point-of-use storage and dispensing systems help this shop target waste that is difficult to measure and often labor-intensive to eliminate.
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Lean Manufacturing Is No Less Important
There are a variety of new production technologies coming onto the scene, but lean manufacturing should remain a shop’s underpinning.
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Lean No Less Important
Lean manufacturing shouldn’t become lost in the shuffle of today’s emerging part-production technologies, strategies and approaches.
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Improvement Is Not Optional
No matter how busy this shop gets, it continues to pull teams of employees out of production so they can focus on solving problems to make incremental process changes. The advances add up. Today, this is a very different shop than it once was.
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Human Capital
This shop’s attention to process improvement led it to recognize and appreciate the largest source of unrealized potential in the company: the employees. Now, employee improvement is a priority in the plant manager’s role, and training has become a systemized part of the process.
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A Robotic (R)evolution
This shop’s evolving approach to automation has led it to streamline processes, challenge preconceived notions about robotics and embrace the notion that a manufacturing sequence is greater than the sum of its parts.
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Video: A Job Shop’s Lean Transformation
For shops considering a move to lean manufacturing—or a recommitment to lean manufacturing—this video is a great encouragement.
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