6 replies to this topic

[GMO]

Please comment if I've not put in an answer which works for you.  I'm interested though how much quality and food safety is embedded both from an organisational and personal perspective into quality and food safety and vice versa.  Does "lean" just mean making more product for you or do you build into it QFS and are encouraged to participate?

[Scampi]

I'm working on my white belt, but that is for me, not my current employer   they are light years away from implementing Lean practices of any kind (to their detriment)

[TimG]

I'm working on my white belt, but that is for me, not my current employer   they are light years away from implementing Lean practices of any kind (to their detriment)

Yeah, I see 6 sigma as a requirement for a lot of the automotive quality management/director positions I've been seeing in my job searches.

Are you taking classes for the white belt? 

[GMO]

Yeah, I see 6 sigma as a requirement for a lot of the automotive quality management/director positions I've been seeing in my job searches.

 

It's absolutely the norm outside of the food industry.  I'm really not sure why it's not been embraced much by many people in QFS.  It should be IMO but it seems to be a mix of when manufacturers use it, they leave out quality and quality not beating the door down to embrace it either.

[kconf]

What's Lean? 

[TimG]

What's Lean? 

Not me, that's for sure!

[GMO]

What's Lean? 

 

Will assume this isn't meant sarcastically...

 

It's a way to minimise waste in a system.  But waste means all kinds of waste, not just stuff in the bin.  Ohno defined one of the "wastes" as product defects and that was the intent of the original forays into what became the "Toyota Production System", the main purpose of it was to prevent defects.  

 

How I see a lot of food industry professionals adopting lean though is in silos.  For example, using things like RCA or PPS for problems but without having good physical standards or work instructions, or, worse, using "lean" as a guise to increase line speeds and not caring it results in more quality complaints or food safety risk.