Lean Manufacturing Tools

The leader of a lean conversion who has the willpower and drive to initiate fundamental change and make it stick. The change agent—who of...

The term used at Toyota for the program manager with total responsibility for the development of a product line; previously known by the ...

The process of switching from the production of one product or part number to another in a machine (e.g., a stamping press or molding mac...

The location of processing steps for a product immediately adjacent to each other so that parts, documents, etc., can be processed in ver...

Ensuring that a production process stops whenever a problem or defect occurs. For an automated line this usually involves the installation...

Kanban A kanban is a signaling device that gives authorization and instructions for the production or withdrawal (conveyance) of items in...

A visual management tool that highlights the status of operations in an area at a single glance and that signals whenever an abnormality ...

A way to regulate the working relationships between two machines or operations to control overproduction and ensure balanced use of resour...

A Toyota-pioneered practice of getting the problem, the analysis, the corrective actions, and the action plan down on a single sheet of la...