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An Introduction to Operations Management

Mind Tools - Management Training, Leadership Training and Career Training Principles of Microeconomics | Economics Root Cause Analysis - Problem Solving from MindTools Tracing a Problem to its Origins A powerful five-step problem-solving process. © iStockphoto In medicine, it's easy to understand the difference between treating symptoms and curing a medical condition. Sure, when you're in pain because you've broken your wrist, you WANT to have your symptoms treated – now! But when you have a problem at work, how do you approach it? If you only fix the symptoms – what you see on the surface – the problem will almost certainly happen again... which will lead you to fix it, again, and again, and again. If, instead, you look deeper to figure out why the problem is occurring, you can fix the underlying systems and processes that cause the problem. Root Cause Analysis (RCA) is a popular and often-used technique that helps people answer the question of why the problem occurred in the first place. Root Cause Analysis seeks to identify the origin of a problem. RCA assumes that systems and events are interrelated. You'll usually find three basic types of causes:

Courses The Best Of Lean Impact - 10 Articles Worth Checking Out NOW! Lean Impact With our new and improved website launched, we wanted to properly introduce you to all things Lean Impact. As such, we wanted to share with you some of our best pieces of Lean Startup goodness from this past year. If you are new to our site, these are great articles to get your lean juices flowing! Without further adieu… 1. Why The Lean Startup Changes Everything (Yes Even For Social Good Organizations) - Want to learn more about The Lean Startup? 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. … Now it’s YOUR turn! Compact Survival Kit - 78 Pieces! So after looking at numerous Altoid and other mini survival kits, I got the itch to make one of my own. One thing that seems to be prevalent is how bare minimum the contents usually are in order to not waste valuable space in the kits, but i think using the most compact kit possible is a waste of valuable pocket space. True, many of the Altoid kits can be very comprehensive for their small size, but the average pants or jacket pocket is more accomodating than we give it credit for, and can fit a bit more than your average altoids tin or pill bottle. I scoured my house trying to find a not too big, not too small container for my kit. I finally checked the spice cabinet and found what i thought was the perfect container. I'm not sure what the actual volume is but it's a red pepper flake spice container, 5" tall with a diameter of 2". Contents : (from left to right in picture)

Lean Glossary Information and Resources 3P – Production Preparation Process Lean experts typically view 3P as one of the most powerful and transformative advanced manufacturing tools, and it is typically only used by organizations... Continue Reading 5S Workplace Organization 5S is a reference to five Japanese words that describe standardized cleanup: Seiri : tidiness, organization. A3 Reports And A3 Thinking As the amount of information that we have at our fingertips grows at an exponential rate, the ability to synthesize and distill information becomes... Activity- Based Costing Activity-based costing (ABC) is a method of allocating costs to products and services. Agile Manufacturing Agile manufacturing is the ability to accomplish rapid changeover between the manufacture of different assemblies. Andon You have probably heard of andon cords, andon boards, andon lights, etc. Autonomation Autonomation describes a feature of machine design to effect the principle of “Jidoka” used in the Toyota Production System. Benchmarking

Top 100 Fiction | Best Books | ListMuse.com A contemporary list, with an international flavour and a respect for the classics, The Best Books: Top 100 Novels of All Time list contains many of the great works of fiction you'd expect, but with a few surprises to add a little spice to the collection. Which books would you omit and which would you add to our list? Please let us know in the comments section below. 1. By Aldous Huxley "Aldous Huxley is the greatest 20th century writer in English." 2. By Fyodor Dostoevsky Crime and Punishment is one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century. 3. By George Orwell Hidden away in the Record Department of the sprawling Ministry of Truth, Winston Smith skilfully rewrites the past to suit the needs of the Party. 4. By Leo Tolstoy Published to coincide with the centenary of Tolstoy's death, here is an exciting new edition of one of the great literary works of world literature. 5. By J. A modern classic, this early novel by Nobel Laureate J. 6. By Joseph Heller 7. By Arthur Koestler 8. 9.

Lean manufacturing Overview[edit] The difference between these two approaches is not the goal itself, but rather the prime approach to achieving it. The implementation of smooth flow exposes quality problems that already existed, and thus waste reduction naturally happens as a consequence. The advantage claimed for this approach is that it naturally takes a system-wide perspective, whereas a waste focus sometimes wrongly assumes this perspective. Both lean and TPS can be seen as a loosely connected set of potentially competing principles whose goal is cost reduction by the elimination of waste.[5] These principles include: Pull processing, Perfect first-time quality, Waste minimization, Continuous improvement, Flexibility, Building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers, Autonomation, Load leveling and Production flow and Visual control. Origins[edit] Lean aims to make the work simple enough to understand, do and manage. A brief history of waste reduction thinking[edit] 20th century[edit]

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