Operational Excellence Fundamentals

These courses consist of core competencies that need to be in place.

Operational Excellence: Finding Hidden Opportunities in Your Organization (8 hours)

This workshop will describe what operational excellence is and in doing so, will show participants how to uncover hidden opportunities within their organization. The focus of this course is to give participants a basic understanding of operational excellence and the conditions necessary to create a high performing organization. Topics covered include the roles of leadership and customer focus, how to measure and establish the correct performance metrics, how to define value from the perspective of the customer, how to create a stable and capable delivery system, and how to identify initiatives that could achieve a 20-25% productivity improvement with the current workforce.

Problem Solving & Root Cause Analysis Overview (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the basic concepts of problem-solving and root cause analysis. The course helps personnel understand the problem-solving process and how to use it to define the problem, analyze the problem, develop a plan to fix the problem, and implement the solution and conduct proper follow-up to ensure that the solution solved the original problem.

Introduction to Waste Reduction (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants an understanding of the different types of waste in an organization. Participants will gain a basic understanding of the methods on how to identify and eliminate waste.

Standard Work & Process Mapping (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants knowledge of how to develop a process map by understanding the process and its associated inputs as well as outputs. Participants will gain an understanding of how to develop a process map, how to identify potential process improvements, and how to convert the process map into standard work.

Operational Excellence Core Tools

These courses are the application portion of the Operational Excellence Fundamentals topics.

Principles of Lean Manufacturing Workshop with Simulation (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants a basic understanding of Lean Manufacturing principles used to drive company improvement efforts. The participants will gain a basic understanding of various Lean methods, their purpose, and the problem that each tool is designed to solve.

Value Stream Management (12 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants a basic understanding of value streams and how to define and identify improvement that will improve the overall performance of the company. The participants will gain an understanding of how value is defined from the perspective of the customer, how to document, how value is currently created, and what changes can be made to improve customer value. Participants receive an introduction to Value stream mapping techniques used to document and communicate future improvements.

Problem Solving & Root Cause Analysis (12 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the basic concepts of problem-solving and root cause analysis. The courses are designed to help participants understand the problem-solving process and how it is used to define the problem, analyze the problem, develop a plan to fix the problem, and implement the solution and conduct proper follow-up. Problem-solving methods offered include:

1. 8D
2. PDCA
3. A3
4. DMAIC

Workplace Organization (5S) & Visual Management (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the knowledge of how to implement and sustain the 5S methodology, including Sort, Set-In-Order, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. The course helps participants understand the 5S process and how it to use it to improve employee productivity by eliminating the time searching for information, materials, tools, and other things that are required for employees to complete their work.

Changeover Reduction (SMED) (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the basic concepts of how to significantly reduce changeover time utilizing the Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) methodology. The course helps participants understand the SMED process and how to use it to document the current changeover process, analyze the changeover by identifying wastes, internal and external tasks of the changeover process. Participants will also learn when it is appropriate to reduce changeover time and how to tie the actions to overall improved company performance.

Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the basic concepts of how to significantly improve overall process effectiveness using Total Productive Maintenance techniques. The course is designed to help participants understand the elements of the TPM process and how it is used to reduce downtime related to breakdowns, extend the life of equipment by reducing accelerated wear, and improving the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) by improving availability, performance, and product quality.

Kanban Using Pull Replenishment (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants a basic knowledge of how to establish an effective Kanban system. Participants will gain an understanding of the elements of the replenishment cycle, how to properly size the Kanban, how to implement Pull techniques, and how to incorporate visual management to properly manage the Kanban system.

Error Proofing (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants an understanding of the concept of zero quality control (ZQC). This course will review the four elements of ZQC and the three approaches to inspection. The participants will gain an understanding of the use of error-proofing techniques to regulate the process and different methods of error-proofing a process so the process cannot be performed incorrectly.

Effective Kaizen Events (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants an understanding of how to properly identify, plan, and execute an effective Kaizen event. Participants will gain an understanding of the process steps to run an effective Kaizen event and establish the tools to sustain the improvement.

Cellular Manufacturing (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants an understanding of how to properly design a manufacturing cell. This course helps participants understand how to establish product families, push vs. pull manufacturing, and how to incorporate lean tools such as standard work, pull replenishment, set-up reduction, visual management, and total production maintenance to achieve successful manufacturing cells.

Change Management Professional

These courses consist of core competencies that need to be in place for the change management professional.

Creating and Sustaining a Quality Culture with Accountability (16 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants an understanding of how to create and sustain a ‘Zero Defects’ culture. Participants will gain an understanding of how quality can be achieved thru the development of processes, which are defined, tested and managed by designing quality into the process, along with a toolset to collect data and provide a closed-loop feedback mechanism. The course will define the necessary conditions to create a quality culture to achieve a predictive quality system versus traditional inspection-based quality. Participants will learn how to build accountability into a process to establish the correct behaviors to support a zero defects mentality.

Lean Planning for Managers (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants the basic understanding of Lean techniques, how to properly plan and implement improvement efforts. The participants will gain a basic understanding of the Hoshin planning process, how to properly define objectives and communicate those objectives to the organization. Participants will develop an understanding via the use of meetings and interactions, how to ensure the bidirectional flow of goals, feedback, and other information throughout the organization.

Project Management using Critical Chain (12 hours)

The focus of this course is to review and give participants the basic concepts of Critical Chain Project Management (CCPMP) techniques to manage projects effectively. The course helps personnel understand the CCPM methods and use them to manage projects in a multi-project environment. Participants will develop and understanding on how develop a project network diagram, how to determine task and resource dependency, how to effectively assign task times and determine the critical path of a project.

Introduction to the Thinking Processes (16 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants and understanding of critical thinking skills necessary to effectively manage change in an organization. The session will focus on techniques to verbalize and document a conflict and how to effectively break and resolve a conflict to achieve win-win solutions. Topics covered in this session will include developing a current reality tree, developing injections to break conflicts, developing a future reality tree, and techniques for achieving employee buy-in.

Introduction to Supply Chain Excellence Workshop with Simulation (8 hours)

The focus of this course is to give participants the basic understanding of supply chain excellence and the conditions necessary to create a high performing supply chain. Topics covered in this course include: the roles of leadership and customer focus, how to measure and establish the correct performance metrics, how to create a stable and capable supply chain, and how to identify initiatives that could achieve improved supply chain performance by having the correct inventory at the right place at the right time.