A lean master

Schonberger is author of a number of books and articles on lean manufacturing, and presented his views and thoughts based not only on the case studies from plants that he has visited, but on analysis that he undertakes based on those visits and data that is available. Before the event he visited previous Best Factory Award winning plants at Ultraframe (UK) in Clitheroe, and Siemens Automation and Drives in Congleton. The masterclass subject was “best practice in process improvement”. In the morning, Dr Schonberger presented his studies on lean, including over 1290 companies upon which he has conducted a “leanness” study. He rates businesses from A-F, and showed the recent trends in lean development in countries including the UK, the USA and the Far East. In the afternoon session, Dr Schonberger talked about “design for operations”, “lean plant design” – where he suggested that big plants “do not necessarily get big scale economies”. He added that if a business needs to expand, “build a separate plant”, using cellular designs, rather than expand the present facility. Finally, he covered the importance of SMED and the difference between data and metrics – “if metrics are turning people off, then resort to collecting data” he advised. The masterclass was held on March 7th.