Glossary
Lean & operational excellence, answered
Short, practical answers to the questions operations, improvement, maintenance, quality and safety leaders ask most, from tier meetings and gemba walks to hoshin kanri, CAPA and agentic AI.
All 145 terms, A to Z
- 5 whys
- 5S
- 6S
- 8 wastes of lean
- A3 report
- Agentic AI in manufacturing
- AI agent for operations
- Andon
- Autonomous maintenance
- Balanced scorecard
- Batch production
- Biological hazard
- Bowling chart
- CAPA
- Catchball
- Competency assessment
- Condition-based maintenance
- Connected worker platform
- Continuous improvement
- Corrective action
- Cross-functional team
- Daily huddle
- Daily management system
- DMAIC
- Ergonomic hazards
- Fire extinguisher types
- First pass yield (FPY)
- Fishbone diagram
- FMEA
- Gemba
- Gemba board
- Gemba walk
- Gemba walk questions
- Genchi genbutsu
- Hazard identification
- Hazardous nature
- Hierarchy of control
- Hoshin kanri
- Huddle board
- Improving product quality
- Incident investigation
- Jidoka
- Job safety analysis (JSA)
- Just-in-time (JIT)
- Kaizen
- Kaizen event
- Kamishibai board
- Kanban board
- Kanban system
- KPI software
- Layered process audit (LPA)
- Lead time
- Leader standard work
- Lean
- Lean daily management
- Lean e 6 Sigma
- Lean in Six Sigma
- Lean logistics
- Lean management
- Lean manufacturing
- Lean manufacturing tools
- Lean principles
- Lean process
- Lean Six Sigma
- Lean stock
- Lean tools
- Lean transformation
- Lean vs Six Sigma
- Line balancing
- Management of change (MOC)
- Management operating system (MOS)
- Managing for daily improvement (MDI)
- Manufacturing KPIs
- Measuring quality in manufacturing
- MTBF (mean time between failures)
- Muda, mura and muri
- Near miss
- Near miss in safety
- Nemawashi
- Non-conformance report (NCR)
- Obeya
- OEE (overall equipment effectiveness)
- OEE importance
- One-point lesson (OPL)
- Operational excellence
- Panama shift pattern
- Pareto chart
- PDCA cycle
- PDSA
- PDSA cycle
- Performance management system
- Physical hazard
- Planned maintenance
- Poka-yoke
- Preventive maintenance
- Prioritisation matrix
- Process improvement
- Process improvement methodologies
- Process safety management
- Quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC)
- Quality control in manufacturing
- Quality management system (QMS)
- RACI matrix
- Risk assessment
- Root cause analysis
- Safety cross
- Safety management system
- Safety observation
- Schedule adherence
- Shift handover
- Shop floor control
- Six Sigma tools
- Skills gap analysis
- Skills matrix
- SMED (single-minute exchange of die)
- Software quality assurance (SQA)
- SOP (standard operating procedure)
- SQDC board
- Standard work
- Strategy deployment
- Supplier quality management
- Takt time
- Takt time vs cycle time
- Tier 1 meeting
- Tier 2 meeting
- Tier 3 meeting
- Tier board
- Tiered daily management
- Toolbox talk
- Total productive maintenance (TPM)
- Total quality control (TQC)
- Total quality management (TQM)
- Toyota kata
- Toyota Production System
- Training Within Industry (TWI)
- TRIFR and LTIFR
- Value stream mapping
- Visual factory
- Visual management
- Visual management board
- Work instructions
- Workplace hazards
- Workplace incident report
- X-matrix
- Yokoten
Tiered Daily Management
Tier meetings, visual boards and daily management systems.
- What is tiered daily management?Tiered daily management is a lean management system in which short, structured meetings run at each level of an organisation in a fixed daily sequence. Frontline teams meet first, then supervisors, then site leaders, so performance problems are surfaced early, escalated quickly to whoever can solve them, and decisions flow back down the same day.
- What is a tier 1 meeting?A tier 1 meeting is a short, stand-up huddle held by a frontline team and its team leader at the start of each shift, at the team's own visual board. In about five to fifteen minutes the team reviews the previous shift's safety, quality, delivery and cost results, plans the shift ahead and raises problems it cannot solve.
- What is a tier 2 meeting?A tier 2 meeting is a daily stand-up in which team leaders, the area supervisor or manager and support functions such as maintenance, quality and engineering review an area's performance. Held shortly after tier 1, it resolves issues the frontline teams escalated, coordinates resources across teams and passes unresolved issues to tier 3.
- What is a tier 3 meeting?A tier 3 meeting is the site leadership team's regular review of whole-plant performance, led by the site or plant manager with department heads. Held daily after tier 2 or as a weekly review, it covers site-level safety, quality, delivery and cost, decides on issues escalated from tier 2 and allocates resources across departments.
- What is lean daily management?Lean daily management is the set of routines lean organisations use every day to maintain standards, expose problems and improve. It combines leader standard work, visual controls, tiered accountability meetings and disciplined follow-up, so deviations from standard are seen quickly and solved at the lowest possible level rather than left to accumulate.
- What is a daily management system?A daily management system (DMS) is the structured set of measures, meetings, visual boards, roles and follow-up routines an organisation uses to run operations day to day. It connects frontline performance to site and business targets, so deviations are detected within a shift, assigned to an owner and either resolved or escalated.
- What is an SQDC (SQDCP) board?An SQDC board is a visual management board that tracks a team's daily performance in four categories: safety, quality, delivery and cost. Used at tier meetings, it shows results against targets, usually with red and green status, so problems stand out. Variants add people (SQDCP) or inventory (SQDIP) as extra categories.
- What is a visual management board?A visual management board is a physical or digital display that shows a team's targets, actual performance, problems and actions at a glance, so anyone can tell within seconds whether work is on track. In lean organisations it is the focal point of tier meetings and the main tool for making abnormalities visible.
- What is a performance management system?An operational performance management system is the set of measures, targets, review meetings and follow-up routines a business uses to see how its operations are performing and to act on gaps. KPIs are cascaded from site goals to each team, reviewed on a regular rhythm, and every miss gets an owner and a countermeasure.
- What is an obeya?An obeya is a lean management room, physical or digital, where a leadership or project team meets around visual boards showing goals, plans, performance and open problems. The word means big room. By putting the whole picture on the walls and reviewing it together on a regular rhythm, the team makes decisions faster and spots problems before they grow.
- What is andon?Andon is a lean manufacturing system for signalling a problem the moment it occurs. An operator pulls a cord or presses a button, a light or board shows where the problem is, and a team leader responds within a set time. Andon makes abnormalities visible at once so they are fixed at the source, not passed down the line.
- What is a daily huddle?A daily huddle is a short stand-up meeting, usually five to fifteen minutes, in which a team reviews yesterday's performance, today's priorities and any problems or safety concerns, standing in front of its visual board. In a tiered daily management system the frontline huddle is the Tier 1 meeting, and anything the team cannot resolve is escalated to the next tier.
- What is a management operating system?A management operating system (MOS) is the defined set of routines by which an organisation runs and improves its operations: the meeting rhythm, the measures reviewed at each level, the standards and audits that hold performance, the escalation paths and the problem-solving methods. It is a way of managing, not a piece of software, although software is often used to run it.
- What is a gemba board?A gemba board is a visual management board placed at the gemba, the place where the work is done, so the team that owns the process can see its performance, problems and actions without leaving the floor. It is where the daily huddle happens and what a leader reviews on a gemba walk. In a tiered daily management system it is the Tier 1 board.
- What are manufacturing KPIs?Manufacturing KPIs are the measurable targets a plant uses to run and improve production. Common production KPI examples are OEE, first pass yield, schedule adherence, scrap rate, labour hours per unit and recordable incidents. A good set is small, owned by the team, reviewed daily and paired with the actions taken.
- What is first pass yield?First pass yield (FPY) is the percentage of units that pass a process right the first time, with no rework, repair or scrap. Calculate it as good units first time divided by units entering, times 100. Unlike final yield, FPY exposes hidden rework, so manufacturers track it on tier boards.
- What is schedule adherence?Schedule adherence is a delivery measure of how closely an operation followed its production plan: the percentage of scheduled jobs or units completed in the planned period, sequence and quantity. It shows whether the plan is being executed, as distinct from throughput, which shows whether enough was made. Low adherence usually means problems were absorbed by reshuffling rather than solved.
- What is a shift handover?A shift handover is the structured transfer of responsibility and information from the outgoing shift to the incoming one: the current status of the process and equipment, open problems and who owns them, safety issues, actions due, and anything unusual to watch. Done well, it takes ten minutes against a standard checklist; done badly, it is where problems are lost and repeated.
- What is a visual factory?A visual factory is a workplace designed so that anyone can understand the status of work, the standards expected and the problems present within minutes of walking in, without asking or opening a system. It combines visual controls, floor markings, shadow boards, andon lights, tier boards, labelled locations and displayed standards, so abnormal conditions stand out and are acted on.
- What is a tier board?A tier board is the visual management board a team reviews in its daily tier meeting. It shows the team's measures against target, usually grouped as safety, quality, delivery, cost and people, open actions with owners and dates, new problems, and items escalated to or returned from the next tier. Each tier's board rolls up the boards below it.
- What is a huddle board?A huddle board is the visual board a team gathers around for its short daily stand-up. It shows the team's key measures against target, the problems raised, the actions in progress with owners and dates, and today's priorities, so the huddle runs from the board rather than from memory. In a tiered daily management system the huddle board is the Tier 1 board.
- What is a kanban board?A kanban board is a visual management tool that shows work as cards moving left to right through columns representing the stages of a process, typically To Do, In Progress and Done. Limits on work in progress in each column stop overloading, so bottlenecks are visible and work flows. It comes from the kanban pull signals of the Toyota Production System.
- What is managing for daily improvement (MDI)?Managing for daily improvement (MDI) is a lean management routine in which each team reviews its performance against plan every day at a visual board, records gaps as problems, assigns actions and escalates what it cannot solve, so that improvement happens daily at the lowest level rather than in periodic projects. It is another name for daily management or tiered daily management.
- What is shop floor control?Shop floor control is the set of activities that release work to the production floor, track it as it moves through each operation, and respond when it drifts from plan. It covers job release, scheduling, progress and status tracking, and problem response, so supervisors know what is running, what is late and what needs help now.
- What is visual management?Visual management is the lean practice of making the condition of work obvious at a glance, using signals such as colours, lines, lights, labels and boards. Anyone walking into an area can see what is normal, what is wrong and what needs doing, without asking a supervisor or opening a report.
- What is KPI software?KPI software is a tool that collects, calculates and displays key performance indicators in one place, so teams can see results against targets and act on them. In operations it shows measures such as safety, quality, delivery and cost by team and site, highlights what is off target, and links each gap to an owner and an action.
Standard Work & Leadership Routines
Gemba walks, leader standard work and layered audits.
- What is a gemba walk?A gemba walk is a structured visit by a leader to the gemba, the place where work actually happens, to observe the process, talk with the people doing it and understand problems before deciding anything. It is a lean management practice built on respect for people and going to see for yourself, and it feeds the daily tier meetings where what was found becomes action.
- What is gemba?Gemba is a Japanese term meaning "the actual place". In lean management it refers to wherever value is created: the production line, the lab bench, the warehouse floor or the hospital ward. The principle behind it is that problems are best understood and solved by going to the gemba and seeing the real situation directly.
- What is leader standard work?Leader standard work (LSW) is a documented set of routines that each leader performs on a regular rhythm, such as attending tier meetings, walking the floor, checking visual boards and coaching problem solving. It makes the daily management system run reliably by defining what leaders check, when, and what they do when they find a gap.
- What is standard work?Standard work is the current best, safest and most efficient method for performing a task, agreed by the people who do it and documented so everyone follows it the same way. In lean it is defined by three elements: takt time, the work sequence and standard in-process stock. It is the baseline from which improvement is measured.
- What is a layered process audit?A layered process audit (LPA) is a short, frequent audit in which multiple levels of the organisation, from team leaders to plant managers, check that critical process steps and controls are being followed. Each layer audits on a set schedule using a standard checklist, and nonconformances are corrected on the spot or raised as actions.
- What is a kamishibai board?A kamishibai board is a visual management board that holds a set of audit cards, each describing one standard to check. Leaders draw cards on a schedule, go to the area, check the standard and turn the card to show green (passed) or red (failed). It makes leader standard work and layered audits visible and keeps standards from quietly slipping.
- What is genchi genbutsu?Genchi genbutsu is the Toyota principle of going to the actual place and seeing the actual thing for yourself before deciding anything. It means a leader or problem solver understands a situation by observing the work, the equipment and the people directly, rather than relying on reports, dashboards or second-hand accounts. It is the foundation of the gemba walk.
- What is 5S?5S is a lean method for organising and maintaining a workplace so that problems are visible and work flows. The five steps are sort (remove what is not needed), set in order (a place for everything), shine (clean and inspect), standardise (make the first three the rule) and sustain (audit and keep it going). It comes from five Japanese words beginning with S.
- What is an SOP (standard operating procedure)?An SOP, or standard operating procedure, is a documented set of step-by-step instructions for carrying out a routine task the same way every time, safely and to the required quality. It sets out what to do, in what order, with what equipment and checks, and who is responsible, so a trained person can follow it without further guidance.
- What questions should you ask on a gemba walk?The best gemba walk questions are open, specific to the work in front of you and grouped the way a tier board is: safety, quality, delivery, cost and people. Ask what gets in the way, how the operator knows the output is good, where the time went this hour and what they would change, then listen, record and follow up in the daily huddle.
- What are work instructions?Work instructions are detailed, step-by-step directions for carrying out one specific task at the place it is done. They tell the operator exactly what to do, in what order, with which tools, settings and quality checks, so any trained person gets the same result. They sit beneath an SOP and are usually kept at the workstation.
Strategy Deployment
Hoshin kanri, catchball and connecting strategy to daily work.
- What is hoshin kanri?Hoshin kanri is a lean strategic planning method, developed in Japan, that focuses an organisation on a few breakthrough objectives and aligns every level behind them. It uses catchball, a back-and-forth negotiation between management levels, to agree targets and means, and runs on PDCA cycles with regular reviews to keep plans on track.
- What is strategy deployment?Strategy deployment is the management process that turns an organisation's strategy into aligned goals, projects and daily actions at every level, then tracks progress so leaders can adjust course. It connects the boardroom to the frontline by making sure every team knows which objectives it supports and how its work contributes to them.
- What is nemawashi?Nemawashi is the Japanese practice of quietly building agreement before a formal decision. The word means "going around the roots", as a gardener does before moving a tree. In lean management, it means talking to everyone affected by a proposal, gathering their concerns and improving the idea, so that the formal meeting confirms a decision rather than fighting over it.
- What is catchball?Catchball is the structured back-and-forth between management levels used in hoshin kanri to agree targets and the means to reach them. A level proposes objectives, the level below responds with what it can deliver and what it needs, and the proposal is thrown back and forth, like a ball, until both sides commit to a plan they believe in.
- What is an X-matrix?An X-matrix is the one-page planning document used in hoshin kanri. Four lists sit around a central X: long-term breakthrough objectives, this year's objectives, the improvement priorities that will deliver them, and the measures of success, with the people responsible along the edge. Marks in the corners show which items connect, so the whole strategy and its logic fit on one sheet.
- What is a bowling chart?A bowling chart is the review tool used in hoshin kanri to track strategic objectives month by month. Each row is an objective or measure; the columns are the months, each with a planned and an actual value, coloured green when on target and red when not. The pattern of reds shows where countermeasures are needed and whether they work.
- What is a RACI matrix?A RACI matrix is a table that assigns a role to every person for every task or decision in a project or process: Responsible (does the work), Accountable (owns the outcome, one person only), Consulted (gives input before the work is done) and Informed (told afterwards). It removes the ambiguity that causes tasks to be done twice or not at all.
- What is a balanced scorecard?A balanced scorecard is a strategic performance framework, introduced by Kaplan and Norton in 1992, that measures an organisation from four perspectives rather than finance alone: financial, customer, internal business process, and learning and growth. Each perspective has objectives, measures, targets and initiatives, linked in a strategy map that shows how one drives the next.
Problem Solving & Continuous Improvement
Root cause analysis, A3, PDCA, 5 whys, CAPA and kaizen.
- What is root cause analysis?Root cause analysis (RCA) is a structured method for finding the underlying reason a problem occurred, rather than treating its symptoms. Teams define the problem, gather facts, identify possible causes, verify the true cause with evidence and put countermeasures in place so the problem does not recur. Common RCA tools include the 5 whys and fishbone diagrams.
- What is an A3 report?An A3 report is a one-page problem-solving document, named after the A3 paper size, that tells the full story of a problem from background and current state through root cause, countermeasures and follow-up. Developed at Toyota, it structures thinking around PDCA and makes the reasoning visible so others can review, coach and learn from it.
- What is the PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act)?The PDCA cycle (Plan-Do-Check-Act) is a four-step method for improving processes and solving problems through structured experimentation. Teams plan a change based on a hypothesis, do it on a small scale, check the results against what they expected, then act by standardising what worked or adjusting and running the cycle again. It is the foundation of continuous improvement.
- What are the 5 whys?The 5 whys is a root cause analysis technique in which a team asks "why?" repeatedly, typically about five times, to move from a problem's visible symptom to its underlying cause. Each answer becomes the subject of the next question. Developed at Toyota, it works best for straightforward problems and when every answer is checked against facts at the process.
- What is a fishbone (Ishikawa) diagram?An Ishikawa diagram, also called a cause-and-effect or fishbone diagram, is a visual tool that maps the possible causes of one problem, grouped into categories such as the 6Ms. The problem sits at the head and causes branch off a central spine like fish bones. Teams use it to brainstorm widely before testing which causes are real.
- What is CAPA?CAPA (corrective and preventive action) is a quality management process for investigating problems, eliminating their root causes and preventing similar problems from occurring. Corrective action stops a detected problem from recurring; preventive action removes the cause of a potential problem before it happens. A complete CAPA ends with verifying that the actions were effective.
- What is continuous improvement?Continuous improvement is an ongoing, organisation-wide effort to make processes, products and services better through many small changes and the occasional breakthrough. To describe it simply: people spot a problem, test a fix with PDCA, and standardise what works so each gain becomes the new baseline. It is rooted in the Japanese concept of kaizen.
- What is process improvement?Process improvement is the practice of studying how a piece of work is done today and changing it so it is faster, safer, cheaper or more consistent. Teams map the current process, find the waste, delays or defects, test a change, measure the result and make the better method the new standard.
- What is a kaizen event?A kaizen event is a short, focused improvement workshop, typically three to five days, in which a cross-functional team studies one process, identifies waste and implements changes before the event ends. It is also called a kaizen blitz or rapid improvement event. It differs from everyday kaizen, which is the habit of small daily improvements by the people doing the work.
- What is yokoten?Yokoten is the lean practice of taking a proven improvement, countermeasure or lesson from one place and applying it everywhere else it is relevant: other lines, shifts, sites and functions. The word means horizontal deployment. It turns a local fix into organisational learning, so the same problem does not have to be solved again somewhere else.
- What is Toyota kata?Toyota kata is a set of practice routines, described by Mike Rother, for building the habit of scientific thinking in an organisation. The improvement kata has four steps: understand the direction, grasp the current condition, set the next target condition, and experiment toward it. The coaching kata is a five-question routine a manager uses to coach someone through those steps.
- What is poka-yoke?Poka-yoke is the lean practice of mistake-proofing: designing a process, tool or product so that an error cannot be made, or is detected the moment it happens, before it becomes a defect. The term was coined by Shigeo Shingo at Toyota and means "avoid inadvertent mistakes". A plug that only fits one way is a poka-yoke.
- What is jidoka?Jidoka is one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System, alongside just-in-time. It means building quality into the process by giving machines and people the ability, and the authority, to stop when an abnormality occurs, so the problem is fixed at the source rather than passed on. It is often translated as "automation with a human touch" or "built-in quality".
- What is corrective action?Corrective action is the action taken to eliminate the root cause of a problem that has already happened, such as a defect, nonconformity, incident or audit finding, so that it does not happen again. It differs from a correction, which only fixes the immediate instance, and from preventive action, which removes a potential cause before anything goes wrong.
- What is kaizen?Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning "change for the better", used in lean to mean continuous improvement through small, frequent changes made by the people who do the work. It covers both daily kaizen, where ideas are raised and fixed within the team's routine, and kaizen events, focused improvement workshops of a few days.
- What is total quality management (TQM)?Total quality management (TQM) is a management approach in which the whole organisation, not just a quality department, is responsible for meeting customer requirements and improving continuously. It combines customer focus, leadership commitment, employee involvement, process thinking, decisions based on data and continual improvement, and it shaped later systems such as ISO 9001 and lean.
- What is FMEA (failure mode and effects analysis)?Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA) is a structured, team-based method for finding the ways a product or process could fail, the effect and cause of each failure and the controls in place, then ranking the risks by severity, occurrence and detection so the highest are reduced first. Applied to a manufacturing process, it is called process FMEA (PFMEA).
- What is DMAIC?DMAIC is the five-phase problem-solving method used in Six Sigma projects: define the problem and goal, measure current performance, analyse the data to find root causes, improve the process by testing and implementing solutions, and control the result so the gain holds. It suits problems where variation must be reduced and data is available.
- What is a Pareto chart?A Pareto chart is a bar chart in which categories, such as defect types or downtime causes, are sorted from the most frequent to the least, with a line showing the cumulative percentage. It applies the Pareto principle, that roughly 80 per cent of the effect comes from 20 per cent of the causes, so a team can see which few problems to solve first.
- What is quality assurance and quality control (QA/QC)?Quality assurance (QA) is the planned set of standards, procedures and audits that builds confidence a process will produce work that meets requirements. Quality control (QC) is the inspection and testing of the actual product or service to find defects before they reach the customer. QA is process-focused and preventive; QC is product-focused and detective. A quality system needs both.
- What is Lean Six Sigma?Lean Six Sigma is an improvement method that combines lean, which removes waste and speeds up flow, with Six Sigma, which uses data and statistics to reduce variation and defects. Projects usually follow the five DMAIC phases (define, measure, analyse, improve, control) and are led by people trained to green belt or black belt level.
- What is a prioritisation matrix?A prioritisation matrix is a decision tool that scores a list of options, such as problems, projects or ideas, against agreed criteria so the team can see which to do first. The simplest form is a two-by-two grid of impact against effort; the fuller form weights several criteria and multiplies the scores to give a ranked list.
- What is a cross-functional team?A cross-functional team is a group of people from different functions, such as production, maintenance, quality, engineering and safety, working together on one problem, project or process with a shared goal. It is used because most operational problems cross departmental boundaries and cannot be solved from inside one of them.
- What is a non-conformance report (NCR)?A non-conformance report (NCR) is the formal record raised when a product, process or system fails to meet a requirement. It describes what was found, how affected items were contained and dispositioned, the root cause and the corrective action, and stays open until that action is verified.
- What is quality control in manufacturing?Quality control in manufacturing is the set of inspections, tests and measurements a plant uses to check that materials, work in progress and finished products meet specification before they reach the customer. It finds defects, triggers containment and feeds data back so the cause can be fixed. It sits alongside quality assurance, which prevents defects in the first place.
- What is total quality control?Total quality control (TQC) is a system in which every function of a business, from design and purchasing to production, sales and service, takes responsibility for quality, instead of leaving it to an inspection department. Armand Feigenbaum introduced the idea in the 1950s. It aims to prevent defects at the source and to keep quality cost low.
- What are the main process improvement methodologies?The main process improvement methodologies are lean, Six Sigma, DMAIC, PDCA, kaizen, A3 problem solving and the theory of constraints. Each is a structured way to find a process problem, test a fix and make it stick. They differ in the problem they suit: waste, variation, a bottleneck or a quick team fix.
- What is PDSA?PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) is a four-step improvement cycle for testing a change on a small scale before rolling it out. Teams plan the change and a prediction, try it, study what actually happened, then act by adopting, adapting or dropping the change. It is widely used in quality improvement and healthcare.
- What is the PDSA cycle?The PDSA cycle is a repeating four-step loop for testing a change: Plan it with a prediction, Do it on a small scale, Study the results against the prediction, then Act by adopting, adapting or abandoning the change. Teams run several short cycles, each one building on what the last taught them.
- What is software quality assurance?Software quality assurance (SQA) is the set of planned, process-level activities that prevent defects throughout software development, from requirements to release. It covers standards, reviews, audits and test planning, and it is wider than testing alone. Its aim is software that meets requirements reliably, without relying on bug-fixing at the end.
- What are Six Sigma tools?Six Sigma tools are the charts, analyses and structured checks a team uses in each phase of the DMAIC method to define a problem, measure it, find the cause of variation, test a fix and keep the gain. Common examples are SIPOC, process maps, Pareto charts, fishbone diagrams, FMEA and control charts.
- What is the lean part of Six Sigma?The lean part of Six Sigma is the set of ideas and tools that remove waste and delay from a process, such as value stream mapping, 5S and standard work. Six Sigma supplies the data and statistics to reduce variation and defects. Combined as Lean Six Sigma, lean makes the process faster and Six Sigma makes it consistent.
- What is a quality management system (QMS)?A quality management system (QMS) is the set of policies, processes, responsibilities and records an organisation uses to deliver products or services that consistently meet customer and regulatory requirements, and to improve them over time. ISO 9001 is the most widely used standard for building one.
- How do you improve product quality in manufacturing?To improve product quality, define what good looks like, measure defects where they occur, rank them, find the root cause of the biggest ones, fix the process rather than the part, and check that the fix holds. Then standardise it and keep measuring daily so the gain is not lost.
- How do you measure quality in manufacturing?Measure manufacturing quality with a small set of defined metrics: first pass yield, defect rate, scrap and rework, customer complaints and returns. Pick the ones that match your process, define how each is counted, record them at the step where the problem arises, and review them daily against a target.
- What is Lean e 6 Sigma?Lean e 6 Sigma means Lean and 6 Sigma, the name used in Italian and Portuguese for Lean Six Sigma. Lean removes waste and delay so work flows faster. 6 Sigma uses data to reduce variation so the output is consistently right. Used together, they make a process both quick and reliable.
- What is the difference between Lean and Six Sigma?Lean aims to remove waste and delay so work flows faster, while Six Sigma aims to reduce variation and defects so results are consistent. Lean relies on observation and everyday improvement by everyone. Six Sigma relies on measured data and projects led by trained specialists. Most organisations use both.
Lean & Operational Excellence
The principles behind high-performing operations.
- What is operational excellence?Operational excellence is a management philosophy in which every person in an organisation can see the flow of value to the customer and fix it before it breaks down. It combines lean principles, standard work, daily management and structured problem solving so performance in safety, quality, delivery and cost improves continuously and sustainably.
- What is lean transformation?Lean transformation is the organisation-wide change from managing by results and firefighting to running the business on lean principles. Everyone can see the flow of value to the customer, problems surface every day and are solved at the source, and people are developed as deliberately as the processes they improve. It changes the management system and how leaders behave, not just the tools.
- What are the 5 lean principles?The five lean principles, set out by Womack and Jones in Lean Thinking, are: define value from the customer's point of view; map the value stream and remove the steps that add no value; make the remaining steps flow; let the customer pull work through the system; and pursue perfection through continuous improvement. Together they describe how a lean organisation thinks about its work.
- What are the 8 wastes of lean?The 8 wastes of lean are the eight categories of activity that use time, money or effort without adding value for the customer: transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, defects and unused skills. They are remembered as TIMWOODS or DOWNTIME. Seven come from Taiichi Ohno's Toyota Production System; unused talent was added later.
- What is takt time?Takt time is the pace at which a process must complete one unit to meet customer demand. It is calculated by dividing the available production time in a period by the customer demand in that period. With 450 minutes available in a shift and demand of 300 units, takt time is 1.5 minutes per unit: the rhythm the whole value stream should run to.
- What are muda, mura and muri?Muda, mura and muri are the three kinds of loss that the Toyota Production System sets out to remove. Muda is waste: any activity that consumes resources without adding value. Mura is unevenness: fluctuation in demand, workload or pace. Muri is overburden: asking more of people or equipment than they can give. The three cause one another, so lean addresses all of them.
- What is value stream mapping?Value stream mapping (VSM) is a lean method for drawing every step, delay and information flow needed to take a product or service from customer order to delivery. The map compares how long work waits with how long it is actually worked on, so a team can see where the waste sits and design a better future state.
- What is SMED?SMED stands for single-minute exchange of die, a lean method for cutting changeover time. It separates setup work that needs the machine stopped (internal) from work that can happen while it runs (external), then converts and streamlines the internal work. The target is a changeover under ten minutes.
- What is line balancing?Line balancing is the method of distributing the work content of a process across its stations or people so that each station's cycle time is as close as possible to, and not above, takt time. A balanced line has no station waiting for the one before it and none overloaded, so output matches demand with the fewest people and least work in progress.
- What is lead time?Lead time is the total elapsed time from when a request is made until it is fulfilled, as the customer experiences it. In manufacturing it runs from order to delivery and includes waiting, queueing and transport as well as processing. It differs from cycle time, which measures only the time to complete one unit of work.
- What is the Toyota Production System?The Toyota Production System (TPS) is the production and management system developed at Toyota between the 1940s and 1970s, mainly by Taiichi Ohno, to make vehicles with the least waste. Its two pillars are just-in-time and jidoka, standing on a foundation of standardised work, levelled production and kaizen. Lean manufacturing is the generalised version of TPS.
- What is just-in-time (JIT)?Just-in-time (JIT) is a production approach in which each process makes or receives only what the next process needs, when it needs it, in the quantity needed. It replaces forecasts and large batches with pull signals such as kanban, paced to takt time, so inventory, lead time and the problems inventory hides are reduced.
- What is lean manufacturing?Lean manufacturing is a production method that delivers what the customer wants, when they want it, with the least waste of time, material, effort and space. It comes from the Toyota Production System and works by defining value, mapping the value stream, making work flow, producing to pull and improving continuously, with operators and leaders involved every day.
- What is lean management?Lean management is a way of running an organisation that creates more value for customers with fewer resources by removing waste, improving flow and involving everyone in continuous improvement. It comes from the Toyota Production System and combines principles (value, flow, pull, perfection), daily routines (tier meetings, gemba walks, standard work) and tools (5S, kanban, A3).
- What is a Panama shift pattern?The Panama shift pattern, also called the 2-2-3 or Pitman schedule, is a 24/7 roster in which four crews work 12-hour shifts in a repeating 14-day cycle: two on, two off, three on, two off, two on, three off. Each crew averages 42 hours a week and gets every other weekend off as a three-day break.
- What is batch production?Batch production is a manufacturing method in which a set quantity of one product, the batch, is made at each stage before the equipment is changed over to the next product. It sits between job production (one at a time, to order) and continuous or flow production (the same product without interruption), and suits a range of products made on shared equipment.
- What is 6S?6S is a lean method for organising a workplace that adds a sixth step, safety, to the five steps of 5S: sort, set in order, shine, standardise and sustain. Manufacturing, warehouse and maintenance teams use it to keep work areas tidy and easy to read, with hazards found and fixed as a routine part of the standard rather than left to a separate safety program.
- What is lean stock?Lean stock is the lean approach to inventory: hold only the materials and finished goods that the next process or the customer will actually use, and replenish them when they are consumed. It replaces forecast-driven stockpiling with pull signals such as kanban, so cash, space and hidden problems shrink together.
- What is a lean process?A lean process is a series of steps designed to deliver what the customer values with as little waste as possible: no waiting, rework, excess movement or unnecessary steps. It comes from the Toyota Production System and is used in manufacturing, healthcare, logistics and offices. A lean process is stable, standardised and improved continuously.
- What is supplier quality management?Supplier quality management is the process of selecting, monitoring and improving the suppliers that provide your parts, materials and services, so what arrives meets your specification. It combines supplier approval, incoming inspection, audits, performance scorecards and corrective action. Quality, purchasing and operations teams use it to stop supplier defects before they reach customers.
- What is lean logistics?Lean logistics is the application of lean principles to the movement and storage of materials and finished goods, from supplier to customer. It removes waste such as waiting, excess handling, transport and inventory, so the right item arrives in the right quantity at the right time with the least effort and cost.
- What is a kanban system?A kanban system is a pull-based way of controlling work in which a visual signal, such as a card, a container or a column on a board, authorises the next step to start. Work is released only when there is capacity, so stock and work in progress stay limited and delays show up quickly.
- What is the difference between takt time and cycle time?Takt time is the pace customer demand requires: available production time divided by demand. Cycle time is how long a process actually takes to complete one unit. Takt time is the target rhythm and cycle time is the measured result, so the aim is a cycle time at or just below takt at every station.
- What are lean manufacturing tools?Lean manufacturing tools are the practical methods a plant uses to remove waste from production, such as 5S, standard work, kanban, SMED, total productive maintenance, poka-yoke and value stream mapping. Each one targets a specific shop floor loss, so you choose the tool that matches the problem rather than adopting all of them.
- What are lean tools?Lean tools are practical methods that help teams see waste, stabilise work and improve flow. Examples include 5S, value stream mapping, kanban, standard work, poka-yoke, PDCA and the 5 whys. Each tool answers one question, so teams pick the one that fits the problem rather than using them all.
- What is lean?Lean is a management approach that focuses on delivering value to the customer while removing waste from every step of the work. It grew out of the Toyota Production System and is guided by five principles: value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection. It applies to manufacturing, healthcare, construction, services and offices alike.
Maintenance & Reliability
TPM and autonomous maintenance.
- What is TPM maintenance (total productive maintenance)?TPM maintenance, short for total productive maintenance, is a lean approach in which operators, maintenance technicians and managers share responsibility for keeping equipment in top condition. It aims for zero breakdowns, zero defects and zero accidents by eliminating equipment losses, and is usually measured with overall equipment effectiveness (OEE).
- What is autonomous maintenance?Autonomous maintenance is the TPM pillar in which machine operators take ownership of basic equipment care: cleaning, inspecting, lubricating and tightening, often called CILT. Operators detect abnormalities early, restore basic conditions and follow simple standards, freeing maintenance technicians to focus on planned work, skilled repairs and improvement.
- Why is OEE important?OEE is important because it shows, in one percentage, how much of your planned production time is truly productive. It combines availability, performance and quality, so it exposes hidden losses such as stops, slow running and rework. Teams use it to decide where improvement effort will pay off most.
- What is OEE?OEE, overall equipment effectiveness, is a measure of how much of a machine's planned production time is spent making good product at its designed speed. It is calculated as availability × performance × quality, each expressed as a percentage. An OEE of 100% would mean no stops, no slow running and no defects; most operations sit well below that, which is where the improvement is.
- What is planned maintenance?Planned maintenance is maintenance work that is scheduled in advance, with the task, parts, people and time arranged before it starts, as opposed to reactive maintenance done after a breakdown. It includes time-based preventive maintenance (inspect, lubricate, replace at intervals), condition-based maintenance triggered by monitoring, and planned corrective work found during inspections. It is a pillar of total productive maintenance.
- What is preventive maintenance?Preventive maintenance (PM) is maintenance performed at planned intervals, based on elapsed time, usage or cycles, to reduce the likelihood of equipment failure: inspecting, cleaning, lubricating, adjusting and replacing parts before they wear out. It is the scheduled core of a planned maintenance programme and one of the pillars of total productive maintenance.
- What is condition-based maintenance?Condition-based maintenance (CBM) is a maintenance strategy in which work is triggered by the measured condition of the equipment, from inspections or sensors tracking vibration, temperature, pressure, oil quality or performance, rather than by a fixed interval. The aim is to intervene when there is evidence of developing failure and not before, reducing both breakdowns and unnecessary maintenance.
- What is MTBF?MTBF, mean time between failures, is the average operating time between breakdowns of a repairable asset, calculated as total operating time divided by the number of failures in that period. A rising MTBF means the asset is failing less often. It is usually tracked with MTTR, mean time to repair, which shows how quickly failures are fixed; together they describe availability.
Safety
Near misses, safety observations and proactive safety.
- What is a near miss?A near miss is an unplanned event that did not result in injury, illness or damage but had the potential to do so. A forklift that narrowly avoids a pedestrian or a dropped tool landing beside a worker are near misses. Reporting and investigating them lets organisations fix hazards before someone is hurt.
- What is a safety observation?A safety observation is a planned check in which a leader or peer watches work being done, notes safe and at-risk behaviours and conditions, and discusses them with the people involved. It is a proactive, leading indicator that helps teams correct risks and reinforce good practice before an incident occurs.
- What is a toolbox talk?A toolbox talk is a short safety briefing, usually five to ten minutes, given to a work team at the start of a shift or before a task, on one specific hazard, control or lesson relevant to the work ahead. Toolbox talks keep safety in front of people daily, surface concerns, and are recorded with topic and attendance as evidence.
- What is management of change?Management of change (MOC) is the formal process an operation uses to identify, assess and control the risks introduced by a change, to equipment, process, materials, software, organisation or people, before the change is made and until it is embedded. It ensures the right people review the change, the hazards are addressed, affected documents and training are updated and the change is verified in use.
- What is a job safety analysis?A job safety analysis (JSA), also called a job hazard analysis, makes a task safer by breaking it into steps, identifying the hazards at each step and deciding the controls needed before work starts. It is done with the people who do the job, recorded on a simple form, and becomes part of the task standard and the briefing before it.
- What is a physical hazard? (Physical hazards at work)A physical hazard is an environmental factor that can cause harm without contact with a chemical or living organism. Physical hazards include noise, vibration, radiation, extreme heat or cold, poor lighting, slips, trips and falls, moving machinery, and working at height. They are among the most common workplace hazards, and most can be seen, measured or engineered out.
- What is a safety cross?A safety cross is a visual management tool shaped like a cross, with one cell for each day of the month. The team colours each day green if it passed without incident, yellow for a near miss or first-aid case, and red for a recordable injury. Reviewed in the daily huddle, it keeps safety visible every day rather than in a monthly statistic.
- What is the hierarchy of control?The hierarchy of control is a ranking of ways to manage a workplace hazard from the most effective to the least: eliminate the hazard, substitute it with something safer, isolate people from it, use engineering controls, use administrative controls, and finally personal protective equipment (PPE). Australian WHS law requires the highest practicable level to be used.
- What is a risk assessment?A risk assessment is the process of identifying hazards in a task, area or process, analysing the likelihood and consequence of harm from each, deciding what controls will reduce the risk so far as is reasonably practicable, and recording the result. Under Australian WHS law it is the expected way to meet the duty to manage risks, and it must be reviewed when things change.
- What is an incident investigation?An incident investigation is a structured inquiry into a workplace injury, illness, near miss or damage event to establish what happened, why it happened and what will prevent it happening again. It gathers facts from the scene, people and records, analyses causes at the individual, task, environment and organisational levels, and ends in corrective actions that are tracked to closure.
- What are TRIFR and LTIFR?TRIFR (total recordable injury frequency rate) and LTIFR (lost time injury frequency rate) are lagging safety indicators that express the number of injuries per million hours worked. LTIFR counts only injuries that caused time off work; TRIFR also counts medical treatment and restricted work injuries. Both are standard in Australian and New Zealand industry.
- What are the fire extinguisher types?In Australia there are six types of portable fire extinguisher, identified by a coloured band on a red cylinder: water (no band), foam (blue), dry chemical powder (white), carbon dioxide (black), wet chemical (oatmeal) and vaporising liquid (yellow). Each is rated for the classes of fire it can fight, from Class A (ordinary combustibles) to Class F (cooking oils).
- What is an example of a biological hazard?A biological hazard, or biohazard, is a living organism or a substance produced by one that can harm human health. Common examples are bloodborne viruses such as hepatitis B and HIV from needlestick injuries, Legionella bacteria in cooling towers, mould in damp buildings, Q fever from livestock and Salmonella or Listeria in food.
- What does hazardous nature mean?Hazardous nature is the built-in property of a substance, task or condition that gives it the potential to cause harm to people, property or the environment. A chemical's hazardous nature might be that it is flammable, corrosive or toxic. It comes from what the thing is; the risk depends on how people are exposed to it.
- What are workplace hazards?A workplace hazard is anything at work that has the potential to cause injury, illness or damage, such as moving machinery, hazardous chemicals, noise, slippery floors, manual handling or workplace bullying. Hazards are grouped into physical, chemical, biological, ergonomic, psychosocial and safety hazards, and each is controlled using the hierarchy of control.
- What are ergonomic hazards?An ergonomic hazard is any part of a job, workstation or task that strains the body and can cause musculoskeletal injury over time. Common examples are repetitive movements, awkward or fixed postures, forceful lifting, vibration and poorly laid out workstations. In Australia these are managed as hazardous manual tasks.
- What is hazard identification?Hazard identification is the process of finding and recording anything at work that could cause injury, illness or damage, before it does. It is the first step of risk management, followed by assessing the risk and controlling it. Common methods are workplace inspections, job safety analysis, talking to workers and reviewing incident and near-miss records.
- What is process safety management?Process safety management (PSM) is a framework for preventing fires, explosions and toxic releases from processes that handle highly hazardous chemicals. It covers process design, hazard analysis, procedures, training, maintenance and change control. In the United States it is a regulation, OSHA 29 CFR 1910.119, built around 14 elements.
- What is a workplace incident report?A workplace incident report is the written, factual record of an event that injured someone, nearly did, or damaged property or the environment. It states what happened, when, where, who was involved and what was done straight away, so the event can be notified, investigated and prevented from happening again.
- What is a safety management system?A safety management system (SMS) is the organised set of policies, responsibilities, processes and records a business uses to find hazards, control risk and prevent injury. It works as a continuous cycle of plan, do, check and improve, and is led by management but run by the people doing the work.
- What counts as a near miss in safety?A near miss in safety is any unplanned event that did not injure anyone or damage anything but easily could have, such as a pallet falling beside a worker or a forklift braking just short of a pedestrian. If a small change in timing or position would have caused harm, it counts and should be reported.
Skills & People
Skills matrices and capability development.
- What is a skills matrix?A skills matrix is a grid that shows which skills each person in a team holds and at what level, with people listed on one axis and required skills or tasks on the other. Operations teams use it to spot training gaps, plan cross-training, staff shifts safely and demonstrate that people are competent for the work they do.
- What is a skills gap analysis?A skills gap analysis is a structured comparison of the skills an operation needs, by task, level and shift, with the skills its people currently have, to show where the gaps are and what to do about them: training, cross-training, hiring or changing the standard. In operations it is usually run from the skills matrix and reviewed regularly, not once a year.
- What is a competency assessment?A competency assessment is a structured check that a person can perform a specific task to the required standard, usually by observing them do it, asking questions to confirm understanding, and recording the level reached. It is the evidence behind each cell of a skills matrix and the sign-off that someone can work unsupervised, as distinct from a training record that only shows attendance.
- What is Training Within Industry?Training Within Industry (TWI) is a set of structured programmes developed in the United States during the Second World War to help supervisors train people quickly, improve methods and handle people problems. Its three modules are Job Instruction (teaching a task), Job Methods (improving one) and Job Relations (leading people). Toyota adopted TWI, and it underpins standard work and frontline training in lean today.
- What is a one-point lesson (OPL)?A one-point lesson (OPL) is a short training document, usually one page and mostly pictures, that teaches a single point: how to do one task, what the correct condition of one piece of equipment looks like, or what was learned from one problem. It is taught in five to ten minutes at the workplace and comes from total productive maintenance.
AI & Connected Operations
Agentic AI and connected frontline work in manufacturing.
- What is agentic AI in manufacturing?Agentic AI in manufacturing refers to AI systems that do more than answer questions: they gather information from operational systems, analyse it, propose next steps and carry out defined tasks, either automatically or when a person approves. Typical uses include summarising shift data, spotting repeat problems and drafting corrective actions.
- What is a connected worker platform?A connected worker platform is software that links frontline employees to the information, procedures, colleagues and systems they need while they work, usually through mobile devices. It replaces paper forms, whiteboards and disconnected spreadsheets with digital checklists, issue reporting, instructions and real-time communication between the floor and leadership.
- What is an AI agent for operations?An AI agent for operations is a software assistant, built on a large language model, that performs a defined operational task such as summarising shift performance, finding repeat problems or drafting an action plan. It draws on operational data, follows set instructions and produces output that people review, approve and act on.
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