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The free newsletter of Lean Manufacturing Strategy
Lean Briefing Archives
Books & Videos
The Strategos Guide To Value Stream and Process Mapping goes far beyond symbols and arrows. In over 163 pages it tells the reader not only how to do it but what to do with it.
More info...
Strategos Guide to Value Stream & Process Mapping
Also...
Guide to Cycle Counting
Facilities & Workplace Design
Warehouse Planning Guide
Human Side of Lean Video
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Metrics for Lean Manufacturing
A Few Principles for Motivation, Control & Problem Solving
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Accounting and financial
metrics measure only the end result from a long series of business and manufacturing processes. They do not help control the processes, solve problems
or motivate people.
Lean metrics go beyond traditional financial and accounting measurements. Here are some general principles:
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 Lord Kelvin
"If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it."
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Principles of Metrics |
Keep It Simple
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Use metrics that are easy to compile and update. Complex calculations or metrics
that require excessive work do not get updated or people fake the data.
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Use Tripwires
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Simple metrics may not reveal the problem source. This is OK. The daily or
weekly metric only needs to alert you that a problem exists.
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Limit The Metrics
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Each person or team should have 3-6 daily or weekly metrics. More than this and
the metrics do not get monitored. These metrics do not have to contain all the information that
the person or group will ever need; they should just signal an alert.
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Drill Down When Problems Arise
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When a "tripwire" metric indicates a deviation, you can investigate further to
find the source of the problem. This may require additional data that is not continually
gathered, processed and analyzed.
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