Lean vocabulary: the dictionary for your organization's performance

A way of regulating the working relationship between two machines or operators that controls overproduction and ensures the balanced use of resources.

See : Inventory, Overproduction.

Production facilities usually managed according to the philosophy of mass production.

Compare with : Greenfield.

A tendency observed in multi-step processes, in which the production orders received by each upstream process are more erratic than the actual production or sales of the downstream steps. Also known as the Forrester Effect (after Jay Forrester of MIT, who first characterized this phenomenon mathematically in the 1950s) and the Bullwhip Effect.

See: Build to Order, Heijunka, Level Selling.

Production time lost due to stoppages, whether planned or unplanned. Planned downtime includes scheduled stoppages for activities such as start-of-shift production meetings, changeovers and maintenance. Unplanned downtime includes stoppages due to breakdowns, machine adjustments, material shortages and absenteeism.

See: Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

Meeting customer requirements exactly with the minimum amount of resources.

See : Overproduction, Seven Wastes.

The frequency with which each part is produced in a production process.

See: Heijunka.

Materials (and information) present along a value stream between processing steps.

Physical inventory is usually categorized by its position in the value stream and by its purpose. Raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods are terms used to describe the position of inventory in the production process. Buffer stock, safety stock and shipping stock are terms used to describe the purpose of inventory.

A measure of how quickly materials are moving through a plant or through an entire value stream, calculated by dividing a given cost measure by the amount of inventory on hand.

See : Inventory.

An attitude toward customers which assumes that demand for many products is relatively stable but is often disrupted by the production and sales systems themselves.

See : Demand Amplification, Heijunka, Make-to-Order.

A situation in which the production lead time and the order lead time are shorter than the time the customer is willing to wait for the product, so the manufacturer builds to confirmed orders rather than to a forecast.

See: Demand Amplification, Heijunka, Level Selling.

Three terms often used together in the Toyota Production System (known as "the three Ms") that collectively describe wasteful practices to be eliminated.

See: Heijunka.

A work practice in which operators run more than one machine in a layout of process islands. It requires separating human work from machine work and is normally made easier by applying jidoka and auto-eject devices on the machines.

See: Jidoka, Multi-Process Handling.

Tasks in processes with many operators that require him or her to interrupt the work rhythm or leave the area.

See : Standardized Work.

Work performed on an item by a machine or a person.

See: Process.

Operational availability is the fraction of time a machine works properly when needed. Operating rate is the amount of time in a given period (shift, day, etc.) that a machine is used.

See : Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE).

A graphical tool that helps create continuous flow in a multi-step, multi-operator process by distributing the operator's work elements in relation to takt time. Also known as an operator loading diagram or yamazumi board.

See: Yamazumi Board.

A total productive maintenance (TPM) metric that measures how effectively a piece of equipment is used.

See : Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).

Producing more, sooner, or faster than is required by the next process. Ohno considered overproduction the most serious form of waste because it generates and hides other wastes, such as inventory, defects, and excess transportation.

See: Batch and Queue, Ohno, Seven Wastes.

Any process in a value stream that sets the pace for the entire stream. (The pacemaker process should not be confused with a bottleneck process, which necessarily constrains downstream processes due to a lack of capacity.)

See: First In, First Out.

The number of items a customer (whether internal or external) wants packed and stored in a container for transport and shipping. Note that a pallet of a product may consist of numerous containers.

See : Pitch.

The amount of time needed in a production area to make one container of products. The formula for pitch is:

Takt time x pack-out quantity = pitch See : Heijunka Box, Paced Withdrawal, Pack-Out Quantity, Takt Time.

A program for training and developing employees that shows the skills required and the skills already developed.

See: Multi-Process Handling.

A product and its variants that pass through similar processing steps and common equipment just prior to shipment to the customer. The significance of product families for lean thinkers is that they are the unit of analysis for value stream maps, which are defined starting from the last step before the customer.

See: Product Family Matrix and Value Stream Mapping.

A board, usually a large whiteboard, placed next to a process to show actual performance compared with planned performance.

See: PDCA.

Processing large batches of products at maximum speed, based on forecast demand, and moving them to the next downstream process or into storage, regardless of the actual pace of work in the next process. Batch and Queue, Production Control.

See : Batch and Queue, Production Control.
Compare with : Pull Production.

A pull production system in which upstream (supplier) processes produce only enough to replace or replenish the product withdrawn by downstream (customer) processes.

See: Kanban, Pull Production, Supermarket.

Taiichi Ohno's categorization of the seven major wastes commonly found in mass production: overproduction, waiting, transportation, processing, inventory, motion and correction.

See: Changeover, Setup Reduction.

Available production time divided by customer demand. For example, if a factory operates 480 minutes per day and customer demand is 240 units per day, takt time is two minutes. Similarly, if customers want two new products per month, takt time is two weeks. The purpose of takt time is to precisely match production with demand by providing a rhythm for the production system. It is the heartbeat of a lean system.

See: Cycle Time, Heijunka, Just-in-Time Production, Operator Balance Chart, Pacemaker Process, Pitch, Takt Image.

The son of Sakichi Toyoda, founder of the Toyota group, he led the company's effort to enter the automotive industry in the 1930s. Kiichiro believed it was possible to sustain the entire production process with just the needed stock of products if the preceding process simply responded to the exact needs of the next downstream process. He called this system Just-in-Time, which became one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System.

See : Toyoda, Sakichi; Toyota Production System.

An organization’s strategic and philosophical vision or purpose.

It is a link that can include "hard" business objectives, such as revenue and profit, as well as visionary goals that appeal to the emotions. (Adapted from Dennis 2007).

An individual with clear responsibility for the success of a value stream. The value stream can be defined at the product or business level (including product development), or at the plant or operations level (from raw materials to delivery). The value stream manager is the architect of the value stream, identifying value as defined by the customer and leading the effort to achieve an ever leaner flow.

See : Chief Engineer.

Placement of all tools, parts, production activities and performance indicators of the production system in an easily visible location, so that the actual situation can be quickly understood by everyone involved.

See : Andon, Jidoka.

Any activity that consumes resources but creates no value for the customer. Most activities are waste (muda). There are two types of waste: type 1 and type 2. Type 1 muda creates no value but is unavoidable in a given situation. An example would be inspecting welds to ensure quality.

See : Muda, Seven Wastes.