January 23, 2006

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A SPECIAL OFFER FOR MBBP BULLETIN SUBSCRIBERS

By now you must know that I believe linearity is a 
major factor in optimizing individual and company 
success. To that end, I have published an in-house 
training package, "The 8-Basics of Kaizen Driven 
Linearity." It's a revised and expanded version of
the "Kaizen Based Lean Manufacturing" tutorial.

If your company is interested in mastering the 
basics of order fulfillment/manufacturing linearity, 
a good approach would be to consider my in-house 
training package, "The 8-Basics of Kaizen Driven 
Linearity." 

MBBP Subscribers can purchase this training package 
at a 20% discount from the bookstore price of $495.00; 
or for $395.00. Now that's a savings of $100 from 
retail and many more hundreds of dollars less than 
attending a relevant seminar, (If you can find one). 
Now that's an offer you shouldn't pass up.

You can check it out at:

http://bbasicsllc.com/kdl-spl.htm

==========================================

Hi [[firstname]],

During my career in manufacturing, I participated in 
four financial turnarounds. I discovered early in my 
career that manufacturing linearity was a key to 
profitability. In my efforts to bring sanity to the 
shop floor and reduce the hi-cost of the end-of–the-
month scramble, I discovered that success was not in 
systems sophistication but rather in the execution of 
a detailed DAILY SCHEDULE. 

Identifying what daily tasks are important in the 
early weeks of the month and assuring that they are 
assigned, tracked and accomplished on time is the 
secret to manufacturing linearity. 

Most difficult and important is identifying what is 
required in the first week. If you don't know what 
needs to be done in the first week, you are beaten 
before you start. 

Unlike lean manufacturing, day-to-day performance and 
results attributed to manufacturing linearity are 
measurable. If you're not measuring your manufacturing
linearity, I can assure you are not linear and you're
not really lean.

So, this week I have another article for you to read 
about manufacturing linearity.

Have a nice day, and stay connected.

Bill Gaw
bg@bbasicsllc.com
760-945-5596

P.S. If you need help in understanding the concept of 
linearity and how to implement a manufacturing linearity 
program, check out my latest training package at:

http://bbasicsllc.com/kdl-spl.htm


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MANUFACTURING BASICS & BEST PRACTICES BULLETIN

Now serving over 10,945 subscribers

Competitive Knowledge for Manufacturing People 
=====================================

MANUFACTURING LINEARITY

Companies will never achieve their full growth and 
profit potential if they produce more than 25% of 
their monthly shipment plan in the last week of the 
month or more than 33% of their quarterly shipment 
plan in the last month of the quarter. 

As companies struggle to remain competitive, one of 
the strategies by which gains in speed, quality and 
costs can be achieved is to form teams of employees 
to pursue and continuously improve manufacturing 
linearity.

Companies that continue to live with the end-of-the-
month "push" will never achieve their full growth and 
profit potentials. 

How do you smooth schedules and achieve manufacturing 
Linearity?

The challenge is in how to keep daily pressure on the 
critical path of schedule achievement. We need to have 
the visibility of all critical tasks and milestones 
from day one of the month and create team awareness 
and commitment to their timely achievement. 

Our manufacturing team must become sensitive and 
proactive in the execution of early production planning 
details and they must learn to apply their creativity 
and energy in a proactive style. To be sure, upfront 
planning and execution can yield amazing manufacturing 
results and lead to profitability beyond expectations. 

The most effective production manager I've ever known 
used a huge magnetic board to schedule and monitor 
daily production details and track production linearity
trends. An early focus on daily details, corrective 
actions and recovery planning was his management style. 

He would hold early morning meetings every day to 
status yesterday's progress on the magnetic board and 
to establish the daily challenges. He was an expert at 
team dynamics and his people always new what they had 
to do and they were always provided the tools to get 
the job done. 

The combination of the magnetic board, the morning 
meetings and his team dynamics skills made this 
production manger an effective leader and an expert 
in achieving production linearity. I know this story 
is true because I was that production manager.

Today many production managers are still trying to 
solve their linear production problem by pursuing a 
sophisticated computer software solution. 

Most companies are now using MRPII/ERP manufacturing 
systems to control their production environments. 
These systems do not provide timely and detailed tasks 
that are crucial to achieving manufacturing linearity. 
MRPII/ERP do not produce a solution to the "Hockey 
Stick Syndrome". 

On the other hand, using an old magnetic board in this 
day and age of computer sophistication may not be an 
acceptable alternative. A good trade-off might be to 
develop a simple computer spread sheet specially 
designed to plan critical production milestones and 
to measure/monitor manufacturing linearity on a day-
to-day basis. 

SIDEBAR: At Palomar Systems, we developed a 
manufacturing linearity program around a daily 
updated, computer generated spreadsheet and moved 
the daily morning meetings from the conference room 
to the shop floor. This program was a significant 
contributor to the company's success. (Gross Profit 
increased from 32% to 55% as sales climbed from $17 
million to $250 Million.

Using this daily schedule as the "bible", the next step 
would be to retrain the "Knights in shining armor" to 
gradually shift their manufacturing paradigm from end-
of-the-month "fire fighting" to daily proactive problem 
solving. 

Finally, it is important to differentiate between 
shipment linearity and production linearity. In a 
widget, make-to-shelf manufacturing company that 
builds substantial finish goods inventory and in 
highly engineered capitol equipment manufacturing 
companies the two linearity measurements will not 
be equal.

Shipment linearity may be more of a function of 
Sales' bookings and customer's preference rather 
than nonlinear production. Consequently, the measure 
of manufacturing linearity. must be developed to 
measure the performance of the manufacturing process 
and not be influenced by Sales bookings or customer 
related shipment delays. 

Need some professional counseling? 

http://bbasicsllc.com/manufacturing.survey.htm

Rather do it on your own... then take advantage of 
the below special MBBP subscriber's offer:

==========================================

A SPECIAL OFFER FOR MBBP BULLETIN SUBSCRIBERS

If your company is interested in mastering the 
basics of order fulfillment and production linearity, 
a good approach would be to consider our in-house 
training package, "8-Basics of Kaizen Based Linearity." 

MB&BP Subscribers can purchase this training package 
at a 20% discount from the bookstore price of $395.00; 
or for $397.00. Now that's a savings of $100 from 
retail and many more hundreds of dollars less than 
attending a relevant seminar (If you can find one). 
Now that's an offer you shouldn't pass up.

You can check it out at:

http://bbasicsllc.com/kdl-spl.htm

==========================================

A COST-EFFECTIVE TRAINING MODULE

Manufacturing leaders have a responsibility to 
educate and train their team members. Individuals 
have a responsibility to train themselves. Without
continuous learning, you will never reach your full 
growth and earning potential.

In order to help MBBP subscribers optimize the 
benefits of continuous improvement projects, I 
extracted a portion of the Kaizen Based Lean 
Manufacturing e-Tutorial and created a cost-effective, 
Lean Manufacturing Training Module. 

Take a few minutes and check out the Lean Manufacturing 
Training Module... a $149.00 value for only $97.00... 
it's only available to MBBP subscribers. To review it, 
go to:

http://bbasicsllc.com/e-lp-lm.htm

=====================================

You are welcomed to print and share this bulletin with 
your manufacturing teams, peers and upper management ... 
better yet, have them signup for their own copy at:

http://bbasicsllc.com 

=====================================

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6003 Dassia Way, Oceanside, CA 92056
West Coast: 760-945-5596

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Manufacturing Knowledge you’ll not find at offsite 
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Lean Manufacturing - Balanced Scorecard 
ISO 9000:2000 - Strategic Planning - Supply Chain 
Management - MRP Vs Lean Exercises - Kaizen Blitz 
Lean Six Sigma - Value Stream Mapping

All at one Website: Good Manufacturing Practices

 Manufacturing Cost Reduction for Winners

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