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Imagine a smooth flowing process. The work is easy, employees are happy and inventory seems to flow like a stream of water. Now, think what would happen if just one operation in the process couldn’t keep up with the others. Or, a machine breaks down. Now your flow is halted and a lot of waiting occurs. Many traditional manufacturers in these cases rely on inventory buffers to prevent a complete line stop and keep lines running. So, what is an inventory buffer?
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 Click on the Picture to Visit our Training Page This type of work activity does not meet the criteria of value added work, mainly because a customer is not willing to pay for the product, service, activity or information. However, the product, service, activity or information although not considered value added is necessary to either protect the company or comply with regulatory requirements.
 Click on the photo above to see Lean Strategies International LLC's Services. Bias is a term frequently used in forecasting and six sigma. Bias is the term used when a consistent deviation occurs from the mean/average.
 Click on the photo above to visit Lean Strategies International LLC's Service page. Balance in terms of lean six sigma refers to the even distribution of work elements throughout an organization. A state of balance would be an organization that levels distribution of "hands" performing work and keeps equal or level working times amongst the different types of operations found within the organization.
See also: Heijunka Block Scheduling is a scheduling technique where "blocks of time" are set aside to different tasks or projects, such as:
The balanced scorecard shows key metrics on a dashboard which provide key performance indicators and insight regarding four main areas of an organization: Financial, Customer, Internal Business Processes and Learning and Growth. The balanced scorecard is used in strategic planning and management in a wide variety of industries. For more in depth study of the balanced scorecard we recommend reading Dr. Robert Kaplan and Dr. David Norton's book titled The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action.
 A backlog is every customer order that has been received as an order that has not yet fulfilled the customers request. Examples
A bottleneck is the term used for any function, department, resource or facility whose needed capacity is less than the demand being placed upon it.
 The bullwhip effect can be described as an extreme change in the supply chain upstream that is normally triggered by a small change in demand downstream. This often affects inventory levels which can shift from being on backorder to being in excess of the needed demand. The general cause of these fluctuations within the supply chain is almost always related to communication. As communication travels up the supply chain with various forms of waste and delay amounts, times and the accuracy tend to "whip" further from the actual need. The one sure fire way to eliminate the bullwhip effect is to align supply with demand, including completely transparent communication and synchronization of the supply chain perfectly.
Reference: Apics Dictionary 2015 - Bullwhip effect.  The boundaries/scope of a charter make it clear to the team what the starting and stopping point are and to what level. The scope includes lateral and longitudinal scope. Starting and stopping points are usually outlined with a SIPOC map or a flow chart. Scope sets the in’s and out’s or the boundaries for team members.
 Best Practices are a technique used in benchmarking. The technique measures similar items, activities or services and is used as a measurement or performance standard. Defining best practices is often used in continuous improvement to set new standards or improve on current practices.
 A baseline refers to a measurement that establishes a basis for other future state measures. The baseline is usually the initial set of measurements, observations or data collected which is used for a comparison or a benchmark for improvements. It is sometimes referred to as as a current state. Example: Susan needed to be able to type 90 words per minute to qualify for the job she wanted. In order for her to see where she was at currently her husband established a baseline measurement by having her type as many words as she could in one minute. Susans average score was 94 words per minute. Question: Tim was tasked with improving the cycle time of the shops ID and Pack process. His goal was to improve the time by 2 minutes which would make the new cycle time 3 minutes from the baseline.  Click on the Photo to Visit our Training Page. "Batching" or batch production is a technique used in both office and manufacturing environments. This type of production creates the object or activity over a series of workstations one stage at a time. The objects are created in "groups" or "batches."
 Benchmarking is the practice of comparing one's own Organization or individual self against the performance of others that are best in class. The objective of benchmarking is to improve areas of performance, build relationships and share best practices. In general there are seven different types of benchmarking: competitive benchmarking, financial benchmarking, functional benchmarking, performance benchmarking, process benchmarking, product benchmarking and strategic benchmarking.
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