Eight Workshops on Lean Manufacturing Help Companies Compete

BROOKLINE, Mass., May 3, 2005 -- A series of eight workshops presented by the nonprofit Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) will help companies and suppliers in the western U.S. cut costs, improve profits, and defend jobs by eliminating waste through lean manufacturing.

The workshops, including two new ones on Lean Problem Solving and Business Process Value-Stream Mapping, will run June 28 - 30 at the Hotel Denver Tech Center, Greenwood Village, CO. The workshops are:

  -- Value-Stream Mapping, June 28: Learn a fundamental initial step that
     creates the blueprint for applying other lean tools and running kaizen
     events most effectively.
  -- NEW! Lean Problem Solving, June 28: Learn the problem solving approach
     called the "DNA" of the Toyota Production System," based on the
     scientific method of plan-do-check-act and the A3 report.
  -- Achieving Basic Stability, June 29: Understand how to identify critical
     process instability issues, such as availability, speed, flexibility,
     and quality.
  -- Creating Continuous Flow, June 29: Get the complete benefits of
     cellular production by focusing on the critical pacemaker process, the
     people factors of the operation, and how to balance the work to takt
     time.
  -- NEW! Business Process Value-Stream Mapping, June 29: Apply value-stream
     mapping to administrative, professional, and transactional activities.
  -- Creating Level Pull, June 30: Create a lean production control system
     for all the product families within a facility by implementing pull
     between processes and a leveled schedule at the pacemaker process.
  -- Making Materials Flow, June 30: Sustain continuous flow cells and lines
     with a dependable just-in-time material-handling system for purchased
     parts that uses timed delivery routes, pull signals, and a Plan for
     Every Part database.
  -- Policy Management, June 29-30: (This is a two-day workshop.)  Learn how
     to "de-select" lean initiatives down to the ones the organization can
     really achieve while aligning them with company strategic objectives.

Workshops run from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. For complete content descriptions and to register, go to the Training page of the LEI web site at http://www.lean.org/events/ or call (617) 713-2900.

Lean manufacturing cuts costs and inventories rapidly to free cash and resources, which is critical in a competitive world economy. Lean supports profitable growth by improving productivity and quality, reducing lead times, and freeing resources. For example, it frees office and plant space and increases capacity so companies can add product lines, in-source component production, and increase output of existing products. Companies implementing lean can take advantage of renewed economic growth by increasing sales while controlling costs.

Based in Brookline, MA, the Lean Enterprise Institute is a nonprofit training, publishing, and research organization founded by James Womack, Ph.D., in August 1997. It has developed simple but powerful tools for implementing a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking, based initially on the Toyota Production System and now extended to an entire Lean Business System. For more information visit the LEI News page at http://www.lean.org/WhoWeAre/LEINews.cfm .