Business Tenets
Lean Philosophy
"Lean" is a management philosophy designed to be flexible in meeting new competitive challenges while eliminating waste, enhancing productivity, and pushing innovation. Lean practices are ever ongoing and continually trying to reduce cost, increase speed of delivery, and ultimately improve end user satisfaction.
CWC began implementing the lean philosophy in 2006 with it's adoption of the fundamental principals of Lean Six Sigma. CWC further expanded it's lean philosophy with the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in 2007. In 2008 CWC began to implement Lean Office and Lean Project Management. By using this philosophy the company is more agile and better able to manage change.
CWC began implementing the lean philosophy in 2006 with it's adoption of the fundamental principals of Lean Six Sigma. CWC further expanded it's lean philosophy with the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in 2007. In 2008 CWC began to implement Lean Office and Lean Project Management. By using this philosophy the company is more agile and better able to manage change.
Lean Six Sigma
Lean Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology which combines tools from both the Lean philosophy and Six Sigma. The Lean Philosophy focuses on speed and efficiency while traditional Six Sigma focuses on quality. By combining the two, the result is better quality faster and more efficiently.
This strives to mitigate significant failure modes of "Quality only" Six Sigma when it is applied to reducing variation in a single process step (sub-optimizing), or to processes which are not value added to the customer. The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) steps can still apply, but the objectives and inputs under study incorporate both quality as well as speed and efficiency metrics.
This strives to mitigate significant failure modes of "Quality only" Six Sigma when it is applied to reducing variation in a single process step (sub-optimizing), or to processes which are not value added to the customer. The DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) steps can still apply, but the objectives and inputs under study incorporate both quality as well as speed and efficiency metrics.
Lean Manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is the production of goods using less of everything compared to traditional mass production: less waste, less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment in tools, and less engineering time to develop a new product. It is renowned for its focus on reduction of waste in order to improve overall customer value but has some key new perspectives on how to do this.
CWC has been implementing Lean Manufacturing since 2007 along with a philosophy of Just In Time (JIT) Manufacturing. CWC requires all employees to understand the fundamentals of Lean manufacturing and encourages the employees to actively particpate in projects which focus on bost cost reduction and quality improvement.
Today CWC has has several employees who have received formal training in Lean Manufacturing techniques and continues to evolve it's own implementation of lean manufacturing.
CWC has been implementing Lean Manufacturing since 2007 along with a philosophy of Just In Time (JIT) Manufacturing. CWC requires all employees to understand the fundamentals of Lean manufacturing and encourages the employees to actively particpate in projects which focus on bost cost reduction and quality improvement.
Today CWC has has several employees who have received formal training in Lean Manufacturing techniques and continues to evolve it's own implementation of lean manufacturing.
Lean Project Management
Lean Project Management is a philosophy that begins with the end in mind. It is an understanding that sometimes less is more. It does not require overly complex practices of reducing projects to millions of individual tasks but instead looks at overall project deliverables and the creation of key milestones that defines a projects overall success and timeliness. Based off of these deliverables and milestones we find that the time required to manage a project can be significantly reduced while providing even better monitoring and controls.
Benefits of Lean Project Management Include;
Benefits of Lean Project Management Include;
- More successful projects (satisfied customers and project team, full-scope, on-time, under-budget).
- Faster project completion.
- Simple project status.
- Reduced unnecessary project paperwork.
- Clear signals on when to take action on the project.
- Reduced pressure on project team members.
- Reduction of the waste that causes project delays.
Lean Office
A lean office produces just what is needed, when it is needed with no additional labor, costs or time. Lean offices outperform the traditional in Quality, Delivery, and Cost. Reducing errors, cycle time, and expenses will drive shortened delivery times to customers, reduced inventory levels and increased sales capacity.
In 2008 CWC began implementing Lean Office by fully reorganizing its physical filing system, physical office supply area, and network storage. Still to come will be the implementation mid year of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Sharepoint Portal for back office use.
From a process perspective CWC will be focusing on eliminating waste within business processes to decrease costs, decrease waste, and decrease delays in production that occur from the back office infrastructure.
In 2008 CWC began implementing Lean Office by fully reorganizing its physical filing system, physical office supply area, and network storage. Still to come will be the implementation mid year of Microsoft Exchange and Microsoft Sharepoint Portal for back office use.
From a process perspective CWC will be focusing on eliminating waste within business processes to decrease costs, decrease waste, and decrease delays in production that occur from the back office infrastructure.