Tag: continuous improvement

OM Podcast #47: Leadership and Continuous Improvement

In our latest podcast, Barry Render interviews John Dyer, a well‑known speaker, consultant, and expert in continuous improvement, and the author of The Façade of Excellence: Defining a New Normal of Leadership. With over 40 years of experience—including roles at GE, Ingersoll Rand, and years of consulting across manufacturing, government, and nonprofit sectors—John brings a depth of practical insight that leaders at every level can learn from.

In this episode, Barry and John discuss:

  • What operational excellence really means beneath the surface
  • Why so many continuous improvement initiatives fail after 12–18 months
  • The psychology behind middle‑management resistance
  • The shift from “manager” to “coach” as the core leadership evolution
  • How empowerment really works
  • How AI will reshape teamwork, decision‑making, and PDCA cycles
  • Real‑world examples of fully empowered, high‑performance teams

This is an outstanding conversation for instructors, operations leaders, and students who want an honest, experience‑grounded perspective on building sustainable cultures of excellence.

 

TRANSCRIPT LINK
A Word document of this podcast will download by clicking the word Transcript above.

John Dyer
Prof. Barry Render

Have you subscribed to this podcast on Apple Podcasts?
Just open your Apple Podcasts app, search “Heizer Render Munson OM Podcast,” and subscribe to get our newest episodes as soon as they’re released!

Instructors: assignable auto‑graded exercises using this podcast are available in MyLab OM. To learn more, view our earlier blog post featuring Chuck Munson or contact your Pearson representative: Find your rep

 

OM Podcast #22: Continuous Process Improvement and Lean at Pearson Education

We are gearing back up for the fall semester with some new podcasts!  In this most recent podcast Barry Render interviews John Beakes, Senior Director of Continuous Process Improvement at Pearson, the publisher of our Heizer/Render/Munson textbook.  Barry and John discuss the importance of Lean and continuous process improvement at Pearson and in other industries John has worked in.

 

 

Did you know our podcast is now available on Apple podcasts? Just go to your Apple podcasts app, search “Heizer Render OM Podcast,” and subscribe to get all our podcasts on your mobile device as soon as they come out!

Transcript

A Word document of this podcast will download by clicking the word Transcript above.

Instructors, assignable auto-graded exercises using this podcast are available in MyLab OM. See our earlier blog post with a recording of author and user Chuck Munson to learn how to find these, or contact your Pearson rep to learn more! https://www.pearson.com/en-us/help-and-support/contact-us/find-a-rep.html

Guest Post: Superbowl Footballs

Our Guest Post comes from Professor Howard Weiss who is the developer of the ExcelOM and POM software that we provide free with your text.

Superbowl LVI is quickly approaching so this is an opportune time to discuss the footballs that will be used. All NFL footballs are manufactured by the Wilson Sporting Goods Company at its factory in Ada, Ohio. Wilson is a Chinese-owned subsidiary that has been manufacturing footballs for over 60 years and currently makes 700,000 footballs per year. Wilson has continuously improved its manufacturing process over that time leading to the current five step manufacturing process followed, of course, by quality control. 

While there is a straightforward sequence when manufacturing a football, Wilson does not use an assembly line. One advantage of its process layout is that it allows Wilson to pay its workers by piece.

Cutting: Each football consists of four equal ellipsoid parts that Wilson cuts from a large piece of leather using a cookie-cutter style mold. The Horween Leather Company has been supplying leather to Wilson, its largest customer, since 1941 for both footballs and basketballs. One of the four pieces is stamped with the appropriate Logo for the organization that will use the footballs.  Each seamstress has a capacity of roughly 150 footballs per day.

Sewing: Wilson applies a backing and then sews the top two panels together and the bottom two panels together using sewing machines that seem to be the same as those used when Wilson first started manufacturing footballs for the NFL in 1941. After sewing, the seamstress punches the holes for the laces.

Turning: Wilson then softens the leather and turns the footballs rightside out with the help of a steel bar.

Lacing: Following turning, Wilson inserts a bladder into the football and then laces the football.

Molding: The last step is to mold the footballs into their shape and to inflate to 13 pounds per square inch. This is the standard PSI for NFL footballs (unless you are Tom Brady).

Quality Control: The quality control inspector checks that the seams are perfect and that the footballs are consistent and feel the same to every player

The footballs with their special Superbowl stamp are then ready for the big game.

Classroom discussion questions: 

  1. Given the information above, how many seamstresses need to be employed to meet the annual production rate?
  2. What are other advantages, aside from paying by the piece, are there in using a process layout rather than a product layout?

OM in the News: Dr Pepper’s Move to Kaizen

dr pepperAt its Plano, Texas, HQ and in manufacturing plants in the U.S. and Mexico, Dr Pepper’s mantra is RCI, or rapid continuous improvement (although some executives there use the Japanese word for improvement, kaizen). At “kaizen events,” teams of Dr Pepper employees spend several days dissecting every step of their work flow in search of waste.

Here are some details, based on a Wall Street Journal (Feb. 22, 2016) interview with Dr. Pepper’s CFO: “We’ve done 575 kaizen events. RCI is about taking the existing baseline and improving it by finding the waste. It starts with walking the entire process. We call it “going to gemba.” The goal is always to shorten cycle times. You would be surprised. You put a bunch of people in a room to describe how a process works, and they don’t all agree with each other—and they all work on the same process.

We have 32 people in the RCI group. They aren’t there to make improvements themselves but to facilitate teams. We’ve issued 6,500 certificates for participating in kaizen events. Through a number of projects, we improved inventory turnover by 35%, or 1.5 million square feet. We’ve also learned how to create flexibility, including setup reduction in our fountain-syrup line. Sanitizing lines to take the next flavor used to take an average of 32 minutes. We figured out we could do it in 13. Some of the changes are as simple as: He walked from the machine to get a tool. Why is the tool not at the machine?

We walk by waste every day. A team watched the process of fountain-syrup bags being assembled and packed into the cardboard boxes used to ship the bags. Somebody asked, “Why does that box have the maroon Dr Pepper logo on it when the box isn’t a consumer package?” You call on the box supplier and ask, if we took that off, how much could we save a year? They said $60,000, and we said great.”

Classroom discussion questions:

  1. What is RCI and why is it important?
  2. Explain the concept of inventory turnover (see Ch.11).

Guest Post: Continuous Process Improvement Tools

We welcome  this Guest Post from  Kevin Watson, Asst. Prof. in the Dept. of Supply Chain and Info. Systems, at Iowa State U.

OM students are frequently reminded that data accuracy is a prerequisite to effective inventory management and operation of MRP systems- in fact Barry just blogged about this on November 4th. As professors, we often discuss the application of lean and quality improvement techniques; however, discussion tends to focus on manufacturing processes and students frequently miss that continuous improvement techniques can be applied to non-manufacturing activities. An article I just read, “Continuous Improvement Approach Reduces Errors in Records” , provides an example of continuous process improvement tools utilized to address paperwork errors.

The article discusses a holistic solution to address record errors in shop floor packets traveling with medical devices during manufacturing. MEDRAD, a 2003 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award recipient, experienced error rates as high as 20% in the paperwork necessary to track products through manufacturing ,resulting in compliance issues and causing unnecessary rework and delays. The company addressed this issue through the use of a quality improvement project utilizing technology, process, and people based solutions. The project resulted in a reduction of record inaccuracy to 2.2%, saving the company $40,000 and accruing significant non-financial benefits.

Addressing non-manufacturing errors while retaining the familiar touchstone of the manufacturing environment, it is an excellent means to expand student understanding of quality management tools applied to non-manufacturing processes and to begin the discussion of their application in the service/administrative environments. The article would be an excellent complement to the Quality Management chapters (Ch6/S6) and could be touched again during a discussion of inventory record accuracy in conjunction with Material Requirements Planning (Ch 14).