Ed Hill of Chesapeake Consulting will lead the Tri-Cities Tennessee Chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineer’s spring Conference on May 3, 2001 at the Ramada Inn in Kingsport, TN. IIE programs director Matt Ball had a chance to speak to Ed about Lean Production, Theory of Constraints and Synchronous Manufacturing.

1. Tell us about Chesapeake Consulting and your role there?

Chesapeake Consulting works with Senior Executives in manufacturing organizations who want to improve their top- and bottom-line business results. We provide value chain improvement solutions that enhance growth through increased speed and predictability.

Unlike other approaches that try to do everything at one time, we focus on the system’s leverage point to get improvements faster.

We seek to help companies find that leverage point and to develop a strategy to focus on enhancing it. Rather than just identifying problem areas and presenting the solutions to address them, we lead a Team of company people to discover the solutions themselves through education and facilitation. In this manner, we develop local ownership of the strategy to achieve the identified goals of the organization. Accordingly, there is a much greater chance of lasting success.

In essence, we help organizations to Synchronize their operations. This process is applicable to production and distribution issues as well as Project Management and even Sales and Marketing activities.

2. What kind of problems do your clients face and how do Synchronous and Lean concepts help in solving these problems?

We always "begin with the end in mind." Our first objective is to work with the sponsoring parties to develop a clear and concise understanding of the business results that need to be improved. We quantify and document the current and desired business results as well as the scope of the project to be addressed (plant, division, company or supply chain). We focus on opportunities and then identify the obstacles that limit achieving those opportunities. Typically, our clients are looking for increased profits, reduced inventories, better due date performance, shorter quoted lead times and improved return on investments.

The Synchronous philosophies will address all of these opportunities by coordinating the system to a fixed control point and controlling the amount of inventory within the system. The Lean tools of Kaizen, SMED, 5S, TPM, Visual Management and cellular manufacturing are used to focus on the specific opportunities that will meet the stated objectives. They are applied in priority order depending on the identified goals of the organization.

 

 

3. Chesapeake is known for the manufacturing simulation game that helps to illustrate many of the synchronous concepts. Will our conference participants be exposed to this?

Yes, we will play the Synchronous Flow Game during the session. The Synchronous Flow Game is an interactive exercise that will allow all attendees to actually experience the effect of Synchronizing a system. All systems operate with finite capacity, variability and dependency. This is true of a manufacturing organization as well as an office staff, a distribution center or even an R&D project. While finite capacity, variability and dependency are system realities that work independently, they have a compounding effect on the functioning of the business. The Synchronous Flow Game is a hands-on exercise that simulates the operation of any system by demonstrating the interaction of these concepts. In the game, we will experience the chaos that results when there is not enough "protective capacity" to absorb the inevitable "Murphy’s" that occur every day in the business world. We will develop a Synchronous approach to the flow and will see the actual impact on all the primary business results including Net Profit, Inventory Turns, Lead Times, Due Date Performance and even a "fun factor" which is a subjective measure on how much easier a Synchronized system is to operate than the more traditional approaches.

4. TOC principles and constraint management seems to be so intuitive when presented even to the layperson. Why do so many companies continue to struggle when they have sufficient capacity and resources?

As Mark Twain said: "Common sense is not very common." The Synchronous Lean approach is rooted in common sense. Rather than attempting to manage everything, we strategically select a control point that will be the focus of the entire system. Everyone’s job, both upstream and downstream from that location, is to serve the control point rather than to meet some efficiency standard. Accordingly, the system is coordinated to a leverage point that gains the most benefit for that system. Just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a manufacturing system is only as productive as the most constraining element of the process. By strategically selecting where we want that point to be and linking all other resources to it, we are able to gain control over the entire system. As materials and information are consumed at the control point, new materials and information are released into the system. The result is a fully coordinated process.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to use of this very intuitive concept is that it is inconsistent with many of the established paradigms of the business world; most notably the desire for "local efficiency." Dr. Frederick Taylor, known as the Father of Scientific Management, taught us that we gain the most from a system by enhancing the performance of the individual process steps. We have found that this is not true. Rather, we have seen systems perform significantly better by planning for each process step to focus on serving the control point. That means that a very efficient operator would be expected to stop producing on an operation that has processed enough parts to satisfy the current demand and go to some operation on which his/her efficiency might be less. It is better to be less efficient in producing something that is needed than to be more efficient in producing something that is not needed. We use computer simulations and other hands-on exercises to demonstrate this phenomenon. The best proof is the impact on actual business results through use of the Synchronous Lean concepts and techniques. We will also review several case studies where the Synchronous Lean approach is being used successfully.

5. You have worked with Eli Goldratt, author of The Goal. What influence did he have on you?

Dr. Goldratt has a brilliant business mind. He is able to simplify the complex activities of an organization to a point that the basic functions become easier to see. His book, The Goal, has helped to transform the thinking of business leaders around the world. These concepts, which are based on the most fundamental laws of physics, have formed the foundation for the Synchronous Lean approach developed by Chesapeake.

6. The Tri-Cities TN and VA area has a diverse mix of industries with large process chemical and materials industries, paper and printing, glass, and discrete manufactures as well. What common principles of Lean, Synchronous and TOC philosophies would be of interest to all of them?

All systems, regardless of the product or service provided, operate under the same common principles. In essence, the fundamental objective of all business organizations is to move material and information through them in the fastest and most effective manner. Therefore, they all suffer from the same basic problems and they all have basically the same kinds of opportunities for improvement. We have applied the elements of Synchronous Lean to organizations of all types from manufacturing to distribution to project management. One of our clients is the United Methodist Church where the finished good is a saved soul and the raw material is an unsaved soul. We mapped the process and strategically selected the control point, then worked to identify the opportunities of all the operations and support functions to enhance the performance of the control point. That approach is appropriate for any system regardless of the industry, product or service.

 

7. What is the future of Lean and synchronous applications in manufacturing?

Because the concepts of Synchronous Lean are rooted in the fundamental laws of physics, we see the future of this common sense approach to be excellent. More and more companies are making use of these tools every day. New success stories are being written constantly. Refinements in the approach are being developed as well. The combination of the Synchronous approach, which provides focusing and prioritization of activities, with the tools of the Lean concept, which streamline the process and provide visual controls for optimization, is the latest development in effective business management. Success breeds success. As more companies around the world are adopting these approaches and as the concepts are being applied to global supply chains, we are expecting the popularity to continue growing.

Thanks for inviting me to speak to your group in May. I am looking forward to it.

Ed Hill will lead the Conference "Leveraging a Lean Environment- the Synchronous Flow Solution" hosted by the Tri-Cities TN/VA chapter of the Institute of Industrial Engineers at the Ramada Inn in Kingsport, TN on May 3, 2000. The Conference will focus on implementing Lean Production, Synchronous Flow Manufacturing and Theory of Constraints philosophies in today’s manufacturing environment. Who will benefit from attendance? Production Control, Manufacturing Supervision, Plant Management, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality Assurance and Planning personnel will all benefit from attending the conference. If your company is in the process of implementing new manufacturing techniques such as Lean Production, Cellular manufacturing, Flow production, synchronous flow manufacturing, Scheduling or Supply chain management Software, or Kaizen Blitz activities you will not want to let this opportunity pass by.

Ed Hill is an internationally know consultant, author in lean production, synchronous manufacturing, and supply chain management. We are fortunate to have someone of Ed’s reputation in our area for this one-day event and we hope local industry will take advantage of the opportunity to learn from Ed’s experience and knowledge.

For more information, Contact Matt Ball at 423-272-1511; m1sb4@aol.com

The cost of this one-day event is as follows-

Early Registration Before April 1, 2001- $349/ participant. Registration after April 1, 2001- $399/ participant

Registration fee includes all refreshments, breaks, and lunch at the conference.

Certificate of completion will be provided for documentation of re-certification credits.

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