Here are our top picks for Lean Six Sigma news from around the web for the week of July 28 to August 3, 2013.
In Lieu of Money, Toyota Donates Efficiency to New York Charity
Instead of donating money, Toyota has donated is engineers—and its “kaizen” philosophy of continuous improvement—to New York City anti-hunger charity Food Bank. Results include reducing wait time at a Harlem soup kitchen from 90 to 18 minutes, decreasing bag filling time at a Staten Island pantry from 11 to 6 minutes, and cutting box-packing time for Hurricane Sandy victims from 3 minutes to 11 seconds.
Post-recession, manufacturers utilize robotics to stay lean
Robot vision-guided truck builder Seegrid has helped manufacturers stay lean by automating materials handling using Lean manufacturing principles. At American Packaging Corporation, when material handling labor hours were reduced by 19%, this enabled the company to expand its manufacturing while not only keeping its workforce but requiring the hiring of more workers.
Luvataâs solar operations adopt Toyotaâs Lean approach
Solar ribbon manufacturer Luvata’s Pori, Finland facility has been certified as Lean after a successful seven years of implementing process improvement principles. Luvata’s clients include Siemens, CERN, and Toyota.
