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Genba
is a Japanese term meaning "the actual place". Japanese detectives call the crime scene ''genba,'' and Japanese TV reporters may refer to themselves as reporting from ''genba.'' In business, ''genba'' refers to the place where value is created; in manufacturing the ''genba'' is the factory floor. It can be any "site" such as a construction site, sales floor or where the service provider interacts directly with the customer. In lean manufacturing, the idea of ''genba'' is that the problems are visible, and the best improvement ideas will come from going to the ''genba.'' The ''gemba'' walk, much like management by walking around (MBWA), is an activity that takes management to the front lines to look for waste and opportunities to practice ''genba kaizen,'' or practical shop floor improvement. An important difference with MBWA is that Gemba Walks are not done randomly, but with a clear goal and often frequency and structure. Glenn Mazur introduced this term into Quality Function ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Romanization Of Japanese
The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as . Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Chinese (kanji) and syllabic scripts (kana) that also ultimately derive from Chinese characters. There are several different romanization systems. The three main ones are Hepburn romanization, Kunrei-shiki romanization (ISO 3602) and Nihon-shiki romanization (ISO 3602 Strict). Variants of the Hepburn system are the most widely used. Romanized Japanese may be used in any context where Japanese text is targeted at non-Japanese speakers who cannot read kanji or kana, such as for names on street signs and passports and in dictionaries and textbooks for foreign learners of the language. It is also used to transliterate Japanese terms in text written in English (or other languages that use the Latin script) on topics related to Japan, such as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma is a method that uses a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste ( ''muda''). History 1980s–2000s Lean Six Sigma's predecessor, Six Sigma, originated from the Motorola company in the United States in 1986. Six Sigma was developed within Motorola to compete with the ''kaizen'' (or lean manufacturing) business model in Japan. In the 1990s, Allied Signal hired Larry Bossidy and introduced Six Sigma in heavy manufacturing. A few years later, General Electric's Jack Welch consulted Bossidy and implemented Six Sigma at the conglomerate. During the 2000s, Lean Six Sigma forked from Six Sigma and became its own unique process. While Lean Six Sigma developed as a specific process of Six Sigma, it also incorporates ideas from lean manufacturing, which was developed as a part of the Toyota Production Syste ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quality Management
Quality management ensures that an organization, product or service consistently functions well. It has four main components: quality planning, quality assurance, quality control and quality improvement. Quality management is focused not only on product and service quality, but also on the means to achieve it. Quality management, therefore, uses quality assurance and control of processes as well as products to achieve more consistent quality. Quality control is also part of quality management. What a customer wants and is willing to pay for it, determines quality. It is a written or unwritten commitment to a known or unknown consumer in the market. Quality can be defined as how well the product performs its intended function. Evolution Quality management is a recent phenomenon but important for an organization. Civilizations that supported the arts and crafts allowed clients to choose goods meeting higher quality standards than normal goods. In societies where arts and crafts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Genchi Genbutsu
literally translates "real location, real thing”(meaning "the situation onsite") and it is a key principle of the Toyota Production System. The principle is sometimes referred to as "go and see." It suggests that in order to truly understand a situation one needs to observe what is happening at the site where work actually takes place: the ''gemba'' (現場). One definition is that it is "collecting facts and data at the actual site of the work or problem." Application Taiichi Ohno, creator of the Toyota Production System is credited, perhaps apocryphally, with taking new graduates to the shopfloor and drawing a chalk circle on the floor. The graduate would be told to stand in the circle, observe and note what he saw. When Ohno returned he would check; if the graduate had not seen enough he would be asked to keep observing. Ohno was trying to imprint upon his future engineers that the only way to truly understand what happens on the shop floor was to go there. It was where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lean Software Development
Lean software development is a translation of lean manufacturing principles and practices to the software development domain. Adapted from the Toyota Production System, it is emerging with the support of a pro-lean subculture within the agile community. Lean offers a solid conceptual framework, values and principles, as well as good practices, derived from experience, that support agile organizations. Origin The term lean software development originated in a book by the same name, written by Mary Poppendieck and Tom Poppendieck in 2003. The book restates traditional lean principles, as well as a set of 22 ''tools'' and compares the tools to corresponding agile practices. The Poppendiecks' involvement in the agile software development community, including talks at several Agile conferences has resulted in such concepts being more widely accepted within the agile community. Lean principles Lean development can be summarized by seven principles, very close in concept to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Value-stream Mapping
Value-stream mapping, also known as "material- and information-flow mapping", is a lean-management method for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that take a product or service from the beginning of the specific process until it reaches the customer. A value stream map is a visual tool that displays all critical steps in a specific process and easily quantifies the time and volume taken at each stage. Value stream maps show the flow of both materials and information as they progress through the process. Whereas a value stream map represents a core business process that adds value to a material product, a value chain diagram shows an overview of all activities within a company. Other business activities may be represented in "value stream diagrams" and/or other kinds of diagram that represent business processes that create and use business data. Purpose The purpose of value-stream mapping is to identify and remove or reduce "waste" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contextual Design
Contextual design (CD) is a user-centered design process developed by Hugh Beyer and Karen Holtzblatt. It incorporates ethnographic methods for gathering data relevant to the product via field studies, rationalizing workflows, and designing human–computer interfaces. In practice, this means that researchers aggregate data from customers in the field where people are living and applying these findings into a final product.Beyer, H. & Holtzblatt, K. (1998). Contextual Design: Defining Customer-Centered Systems. San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann. Contextual design can be seen as an alternative to engineering and feature driven models of creating new systems. Process overview The contextual design process consists of the following top-level steps: contextual inquiry, interpretation, data consolidation, visioning, storyboarding, user environment design, and prototyping. Collecting data – contextual inquiry Contextual inquiry is a field data collection technique used to capture detai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contextual Inquiry
Contextual inquiry (CI) is a user-centered design (UCD) research method, part of the contextual design methodology. A contextual inquiry interview is usually structured as an approximately two-hour, one-on-one interaction in which the researcher watches the user in the course of the user's normal activities and discusses those activities with the user. Description Contextual inquiry defines four principles to guide the interaction: * Context—Interviews are conducted in the user's actual workplace. The researcher watches users do their own work tasks and discusses any artifacts they generate or use with them. In addition, the researcher gathers detailed re-tellings of specific past events when they are relevant to the project focus. * Partnership—User and researcher collaborate to understand the user's work. The interview alternates between observing the user as he or she works and discussing what the user did and why. * Interpretation—The researcher shares interpretations a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor (March 20, 1856 – March 21, 1915) was an American mechanical engineer. He was widely known for his methods to improve industrial efficiency. He was one of the first management consultants. In 1909, Taylor summed up his efficiency techniques in his book ''The Principles of Scientific Management'' which, in 2001, Fellows of the Academy of Management voted the most influential management book of the twentieth century. His pioneering work in applying engineering principles to the work done on the factory floor was instrumental in the creation and development of the branch of engineering that is now known as industrial engineering. Taylor made his name, and was most proud of his work, in scientific management; however, he made his fortune patenting steel-process improvements. As a result, scientific management is sometimes referred to as ''Taylorism''. Biography Taylor was born in 1856 to a Quaker family in Germantown, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Taylor's f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Time And Motion
A time and motion study (or time-motion study) is a business efficiency technique combining the Time Study work of Frederick Winslow Taylor with the Motion Study work of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth (the same couple as is best known through the biographical 1950 film and book ''Cheaper by the Dozen''). It is a major part of scientific management (Taylorism). After its first introduction, time study developed in the direction of establishing standard times, while motion study evolved into a technique for improving work methods. The two techniques became integrated and refined into a widely accepted method applicable to the improvement and upgrading of work systems. This integrated approach to work system improvement is known as methods engineering and it is applied today to industrial as well as service organizations, including banks, schools and hospitals. Time studies Time study is a direct and continuous observation of a task, using a timekeeping device (e.g., decimal minute ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sensei
Sensei, Seonsaeng, Tiên sinh or Xiansheng, corresponding to Chinese characters , is an East Asian honorific term shared in Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese; it is literally translated as "person born before another" or "one who comes before". In general usage, it is used, with proper form, after a person's name and means "teacher"; the word is also used as a title to refer to or address other professionals or people of authority, such as clergy, accountants, lawyers, physicians and politicians or to show respect to someone who has achieved a certain level of mastery in an art form or some other skill, e.g., accomplished novelists, musicians, artists and martial artists. Etymology The two characters that make up the term can be directly translated as "born before" and imply one who teaches based on wisdom from age and experience. The word prefaced by the adjective 大, pronounced "dai" (or "ō"), which means "great" or "large", is often translated " grand master". Thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gembutsu
literally translates "real location, real thing”(meaning "the situation onsite") and it is a key principle of the Toyota Production System. The principle is sometimes referred to as "go and see." It suggests that in order to truly understand a situation one needs to observe what is happening at the site where work actually takes place: the ''gemba'' (現場). One definition is that it is "collecting facts and data at the actual site of the work or problem." Application Taiichi Ohno, creator of the Toyota Production System is credited, perhaps apocryphally, with taking new graduates to the shopfloor and drawing a chalk circle on the floor. The graduate would be told to stand in the circle, observe and note what he saw. When Ohno returned he would check; if the graduate had not seen enough he would be asked to keep observing. Ohno was trying to imprint upon his future engineers that the only way to truly understand what happens on the shop floor was to go there. It was where the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
