Warehousing, Transportation, Order fulfillment and Inventory Management and Optimization.  We’ve all heard these terms before.  But, did you know how tightly linked they are to a third-party logistics provider?  Many companies in today's day and age rely on logistics providers to help scale and enhance their business.  Companies like Amazon, Walmart and Grainger all use 3PL’s.  And, with the growth of e-commerce and the growing complexity of today's supply chains 3PL’s are becoming a must have for almost every organization.  So, what exactly is a 3PL?

  Transportation waste is any unnecessary movement of materials or information.  Let’s clarify.  Transportation Waste is not the Same as Motion Waste.  One of the key differences is that transportation occurs between process steps and workstations rather than within them.

  Takt time is a German phrase for the baton the conductor uses to set the tempo of an orchestra.  In Lean and Six Sigma applications Takt time refers to the rate at which products, information and/or services need to be completed in, to keep up with customer demand.  ​Much like the pulse of a heart rate, Takt time tells us whether we are beating at a healthy rate or we are falling behind.

  Transportation can be defined in one way as ​the movement of goods or stuff from one place to another.  It may also be defined as the various means by which such movement is accomplished.  Transportation is one of the 8 forms of waste and can only be considered as value adding when it is strategically established to meet the needs of customer demand.

  Though the spelling of the word “team” does not include an I, the definition does acknowledge that each individual must do their part.  The word team is defined simply as: a group of individuals who come together for a common purpose or to reach a specific objective.​

  The Traditional Yield is taken at the final step of a process to measure the effectiveness of the overall process.  Specifically, it shows you the percentage of products  or information that are acceptable at the end of a process.  This can be calculated by dividing the final output quantity by the initial input amount and converting that calculation into a decimal or a percentage.  This type of measurement does not take into account scrap, rework or any other inefficiencies in a process it only looks at what goes in and what comes out.  With this in mind yield may be a good initial measurement to start with but keep in mind that it does not reveal the hidden factory.

  Six sigma and many other forms of project management use "tollgates"  to check the progress of projects in relation to their objectives.  When an assigned individual approves that the team has successfully completed one stage of the project, the team then can "pass" on to the next stage of the project or initiative.  If the team does not successfully complete a stage they can not "pass" on to the next phase.

  The ©TREAT 1,2,3 methodology is a problem solving methodology used by Lean Strategies International LLC that when applied to processes (technical, methodological, philosophical) can effectively reveal root causes related to issues / problems or opportunities in a process and guide users towards solutions for a more stable, effective, efficient and value adding process.

  The Theory of Constraints is a philosophy that is used to identify the point in a process where constraints and bottlenecks prevent the process or system from achieving its highest level of performance.  To simplify the definition, the theory of constraints tells us that "the throughput of a system is determined by the systems biggest constraint (bottleneck).  

  Throughput is the rate at which a process or a system reaches its objectives/goals.  The rate was first discussed and heavily analyzed in the book Theory of Constraints.  The metric is most often measured using "rates" or "monetary" measurements (meaning money).  Throughput is often referred to as manufacturing cycle time.