Management Brainstorming

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MANUFACTURING BASICS & BEST PRACTICES BULLETIN

Now serving 10156 subscribers

Competitive Knowledge for Manufacturing People 

Manufacturing Brainstorming
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October 10, 2005

Hi [[firstname]], welcome back,

Companies seeking a cost advantage over competitors 
usually zero in early on labor costs. Wage levels in 
particular are an obvious target. Cutting people and/or 
wages and benefits may gain a temporary reprieve from 
Chapter 11, but they are rarely the key to a 
sustainable competitive advantage. Because they sour 
workforce attitudes, wage cuts often put out of reach 
the productivity gains that could be obtained by more 
skilled, sensitive management of human resources. 

For example, training the work force in added skills, 
can permit more flexibility in job assignments, and 
that in turn can boost performance results. This more 
flexible use of labor has enabled companies to convert 
from MRP shop order "launch and expedite" systems to 
the processes of flow technology. The success of such 
a changeover is dependent on a highly trained, 
flexible workforce that can design and dynamically 
balance sequential production work cells. The results 
can be exciting --- typical beyond MRP reductions are:

20% Production Costs
40% Space Requirements 
25% Inventory 
40% Quality Costs 
40% Cycle Times 

Effective shop floor control has proven elusive as we 
have upgraded our manufacturing control system from MRP 
to MRPII and then to ERP. To capture control of shop 
floor activities, we need to stop beating a "dead horse" 
and start implementing and improving flow technology. 
The winners turn to Kaizen Based Lean Manufacturing; 
you can too! To check it out go to:

http://bbasicsllc.com/kblm.htm

Bill Gaw 
Business Basics, LLC
bg@bbasicsllc.com 
760.930.1973

P.S. A good practice for planning change initiatives 
is the practice of "brainstorming." This week's 
article presents an overview of the brainstorming 
process. Check it out below. 

Manufacturing Brainstorming
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MANUFACTURING BASICS & BEST PRACTICES BULLETIN

Now serving 10156 subscribers

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

BRAINSTORMING

We experience creativity every time a fresh idea pops 
into our minds. We recognize creative imagination in 
everything from a pastel painting to a business plan. 
In corporations of the future, the ability to 
brainstorm will become a very vital daily ritual, which 
can motivate your company to new levels of innovation. 

These ten tips will support you and your organization's 
best thinkers to bend, stretch, and grow your product 
or service.

1. Substitute someone else's perspective for yours.

2. How would a worker, customer, distributor, salesman, 
service people, or cost accountant approach your idea 
or subject? Don't know? Ask them! 

2. Look at your idea through the eyes of a critic. 
For each idea, make a list of all criticisms that may 
arise. Try to develop as many solutions as possible 
for overcoming obstacles or repairing weaknesses in 
your idea. 

3. Connect your idea to other types of manufacturing 
companies and countries. Can you make an analogy, and 
what ideas can you draw upon from these fields and 
worlds? 

4. Magnify your idea. What can you do to enlarge, 
expedite, extend, strengthen, exaggerate, dramatize, 
or improve your idea? 

5. Simplify your idea. Can you condense, trim down, 
compact, minimize, or narrow your idea? 

6. Change your idea. Modify the name, shape, form, 
function, and properties of your idea. 

7. Make your idea meet the needs and wants of the 
customers. Does your idea meet the basic needs and 
wants of more quality, profit, time, space, convenience, 
customer service and speed? If not, alter your idea 
to meet one if not all of these needs and wants. 

8. Add more value. What will add more value? Add 
extra features, durability, safety, thickness, uses, 
accuracy, and guarantees, 

9. Examine what others have done. Emulate professionals 
and experts who have had great success with a similar 
idea or product. Are you facing a problem that has 
already been solved? Use the past as a tool for 
experimentation and learning. 

10. Flip a coin. When you cannot make a decision, 
flip a coin. Once the coin falls, use your intuition 
and gut to make a decision. If you feel comfortable 
with the result, go with it. If you feel uncomfortable 
with the coin toss, make the opposite decision. 

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SOMETHING NEW

Manufacturing leaders have a responsibility to 
educate and train their team members. 7-cost-
effective, e-learning packages are just 
a click away:

http://best-manufacturing-practices.com
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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/subscribe.htm

With the escalating Spam-wars, it's also a good idea 
to WHITELIST our bulletin mailing domain via your 
filtering software or control panel: 

BillGaw@getresponse.com

This will help guarantee that your bulletin is never 
deleted unexpectedly.

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

Manufacturing Knowledge you'll not find at offsite 
seminars nor in the books at Amazon.com

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: http://bbasicsllc.com

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Manufacturing Brainstorming

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Manufacturing leaders have a responsibility to educate and train their team members. Help for developing a self-directed, World Class Manufacturing training program for your people is just a click away:

http://bbasicsllc.com/training-modules.htm

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

http://bbasicsllc.com/subscribe.htm

With the escalating spam-wars, it's also a good idea to WHITELIST our bulletin mailing domain via your filtering software or control panel: 

bizbasics@getresponse.com

This will help guarantee that your bulletin is never deleted unexpectedly.

Manufacturing Brainstorming

Manufacturing Knowledge you’ll not find at offsite 
seminars nor in the books at Amazon.com

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

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