We are all Lean now. What’s next?

Every once in a while, for nearly 30 years, the question arises: “what’s the next big thing after Lean?”, suggesting that the askers are done with Lean. We write July of 2016 and it seems that everybody is Lean now. Many people have been repeatedly exposed to Lean methods and tools, have been involved in …

Critical Chain Project Management alone is not enough

Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) alone is not enough to drastically reduce a project’s duration and improve the development process efficiency. CCPM is a proven Project Management approach to ensure a project, any project, will meet its finishing date without compromising quality nor any of the requirements, and even though CCPM can lead to terminate …

Performance improvement: simple things can earn big results

Silly things can cost a lot in terms of productivity and output. In this video interview, Philip Marris asks me about lessons learnt while helping a pharmaceutical plant to improve productivity and deliver drugs to patients faster. It is about how simple actions solve those silly small problems and bring big results at literally no cost.

Theory of Constraints, Lean and aviation MRO

In a previous post, “CCPM helps shorten aircrafts MRO”, I explained the benefits of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPM) for reducing the aircraft downtime during their mandatory and scheduled MRO. If CCPM is great and helps a lot meeting the challenge, it will not squeeze out every potential improvement, thus time reduction, on its own. …

Why SMED is quick win in pharma – Episode III

Improving changeovers in pharma industry is a relatively quick and easy way to... quick wins, faster and easier than usually assumed. This series tells you why. Episode III: How to and Why it works In the previous Episode I explained the background of the lag of many traditional pharma makers in regards to Industry Best …

Meeting Bill Dettmer

I am fortunate having met William Dettmer in Paris, France, November 27 and 28th, 2014. Bill is senior partner with Goal Systems International and author of eight books and numerous articles about Theory of Constraints, Thinking Processes and more. >Lisez cet article en français I have read Bill’s works and found myself deep-diving with great …

Cost and inventory reduction, right target?

Waste and costs reduction has almost become the definition of Lean for many people as well as an irresistible lure for most executives and managers. Yet costs and inventory reduction, is this the right target? In the various definitions proposed by Lean theorists, including Jim Womack, priority is given to identifying and creating value for …

What is TLS? The Synergy of ToC, Lean and SixSigma

TLS stands for Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma. TLS is meant to be the combination of 2 or all of these... philosophies, approaches, methodologies, you name them. I discovered Lean (but we didn't call it Lean then) and Theory of Constraints at the same time, when I joined a Yamaha Corp. subsidiary in …

Approach, philosophy or methodology?

We hear and read them often in relation with our preferred body of knowledge*, among which Theory of Constraints, Lean and Six Sigma are the most popular: the terms “approach”, “philosophy” and “methodology”. I wonder if people use them purposely or as synonyms and I prick up my ears each time an expert explains Theory …

What is Theory of Constraints?

The very minimum to know about Theory of Constraints In order to define Theory of Constraints (ToC), it is necessary to define what a constraint is. A constraint is anything that limits the system (organization, enterprise, group, process...) from achieving higher performance relative to its purpose. A constraint does always exist, otherwise the system would …