Lean Problem Solving

Richard Field enlisted the Advantage Kentucky Alliance, part of the MEP National Network™, to provide his supervisors and staff with a tool set that would help them take a more structured approach to problem solving.

Tim Vickers led a cross-section of Post Glover’s management, engineering, purchasing, sales and manufacturing staff through Lean 101 and A3 Problem Solving training. Once there was a basic understanding of Lean and the 7 Step Problem Solving model, the group was ready to tackle real issues.

Post Glover provided a list of current company issues that they wanted addressed. This list included sheet metal utilization, purchased parts outages, RMA reduction, on-time delivery, Kanban improvement and the manufacturing to sales communication process.

Each Team met with Tim Vickers for two 4 hour sessions to work their assigned problem through each of the 7 steps. From definition to countermeasure, each team took a look at current data, collected additional data and focused on the solutions that directly related to the problem at hand as well as the root causes.

Utilizing this data they plotted line graphs and Pareto diagrams. Once a specific area of focus stood out, they brainstormed problem causes utilizing Fishbone and 5 Why diagrams. For each cause uncovered, the groups documented a correlating countermeasure and narrowed those countermeasures down through use of a weighted selection matrix.

Each team worked from 2 to 3 months on their respective problem and reported their progress to the executive management team for approvals and support to its conclusion