Kaikaku: Radical Process Improvement

Kaikaku: Radical Process Improvement

Kaikaku, also known as “radical change,” is a Japanese term that describes a philosophy of continuous improvement in which organizations strive to make dramatic, transformative changes to their processes to achieve greater efficiency, effectiveness, and...
What is FMEA?

What is FMEA?

Failure Mode & Effects Analysis is a step by step risk assessment tool for identifying failures within a design (DFMEA) of a product or service and processes (PFMEA). The structured approach evaluates the level of severity, how often the failure occurs and...
Helpful Tools for Managing your Process Flows

Helpful Tools for Managing your Process Flows

We’re going to take a short departure from our regular column on standards, to talk about techniques for managing your yard better, in the spirit of this issue on Operations. Do you have a process flow that you need to follow, but find that there are a lot of moving...
How Logistics Improvements Save Time, Money, and Fuel

How Logistics Improvements Save Time, Money, and Fuel

The trucking industry has changed a lot since the days when I’d ride in the third seat of the family station wagon, facing backwards, and wave at truckers in the hopes they’d toot their big horn back at me.   (TOOT TOOT!) Back then, they drove what they thought was...
Handling Contaminated Automotive Refrigerants

Handling Contaminated Automotive Refrigerants

While researching information for a client on a sister topic of recycling automotive electronics, I came across this article from the EPA.  Rather than paraphrase it, since it was well-written and covers all the points that I would have highlighted in this article,...