Ex L3 - Continuous Flow

Overview

Continuous flow brings velocity to your organisation. With continuous flow each process flows smoothly into the next one driving down lead times, inventory, floor space, boosting capacity and improving quality with minimal investment. This TWO DAY course for in-company delivery follows on from our Value Stream Mapping course.

Having developed a current and future state Value Stream Map, this course takes lean implementation one step further.  Participants are taken through the development of standard work, layout for flow and work balance with the power of continuous flow demonstrated through simulation exercises.

.Key Session Topics

• Overview of lean principles:
  • Value, Non-value and the 7 wastes
  •  The importance of continuous flow
• Development of standard work
  • Repetitive and non-repetitive work
  • Breaking the work down into elements
  • Timing the work
  • Documenting standard work
• Develop the Operator Balance Chart (OBC)
  • Calculate Takt time and cycle times
  • Distribute the work up and develop options
  • Constraint management
• Cell design and equipment layout and material movement for optimum balance
• Levelling the production mix (Includes Quick Change Over review)
• Sustaining the gains

Benefits You will gain:

• An appreciation of the importance of continuous flow as a lean technique to produce products efficiently with minimum resources and reduced lead time
• Identifying opportunities for continuous flow and its limitations
• How to develop standard work
• The importance of finding and fixing problems within the flow context
• How to balance the work against the customer demand
• How to develop layout to enable the standard work and achieve flow

Who Should Attend

• Individuals involved in lean deployment and have experience of Value Stream Mapping
• Production operatives, team leaders or supervisors
• Engineers involved in lean deployment

Course Techniques

In this course participants are taken through each element step by step with group exercises and simulations used to ensure understanding and demonstrate the benefits of continuous flow. Participants are also encouraged to discuss how continuous flow may be implemented in their organisation and any potential limitations.

Follow-Up

Facilitation of 3-5 day Kaizen workshops to implement continuous flow in selected areas