Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) is a tool developed by Shingo to reduce change over times on machines. Using this technique, you can reduce set-up times from 4 hours to 3 minutes, which is almost 99% (Shingo, 1985). This article explains the benefit of SMED, the techniques Shingo describes for implementation, 4 steps of the SMED Kaizen event and 3 other tips.

This article perfectly summarizes the essence of Singos classic book about SMED:

• Development of SMED
• Examples of SMED
• Why Do we Need SMED?
• Benefits of SMED
• How to Implement SMED
• The 7 Stages of SMED with Details and Diagrams/Photos
• The SMED Process
• Standardizing your Setup Process

In their (German) book Mentoring – im Tandem zum Erfolg, (own translation: Mentoring - Pairing up to Succeed) Tinka beller and Gabriele Hoffmeister-Schönfelder describe the power of mentoring. Mentoring is a powerful tool to use in an organization and therefore gains more and more attention. However, what makes a mentoring program to a success? And when should you use a mentoring program?
This article describes what mentoring is and how mentors and mentees should be selected and paired up. Then, I zoom in on one specific topic in which mentoring can be valuable: the so called generation mentoring

In their book The Toyota Way to Lean Leadership, Jeffrey Liker and Gary Convis describe 4 stages of Leadership development at Toyota. Self development (1), Coach and develop others (2), Daily Kaizen (3) and Aligning vision goals and plans with Hoshin Kanri (4). This article will address all of them shortly.

In his book It´s about time, Rajan Suri discusses the power of the lean philosophy: focusing on reducing the lead time. A little confusing to me, is that he uses different words to describe the same principles as other authors do when they describe lean. Suri describes Manufacturing Critical Time (MCT) instead of lead time, and Quick Response Manufacturing as a new method that come very close to simply implementing the pull principle.

For me, the most interesting parts of this book include the formulas Suri describes to calculate the link between lead time reduction and costs, the 4structural changes that are necessary to become a lean organization, a detailed description of the POLCA principle and a formula that describes the link between the utilization of a resource and waiting times.

In his book, creating a Lean R&D system, Terence Barnhart describes how the lean philosophy can be translated into a R&D environment. Barnhart himself is especially fond of the following three lean tools: A3 thinking, the Critical Question Analysis (CQA) and Value Stream Mapping (VSM). These are the three tools that help break barriers in an innovative environment because they help individuals look at a process the same way. This article there focusses on these three tools that are described in the book.

In his book, deep work, Cal Newport describes four rules which can help you to stay focused on the things that make you happy and successful in a world of distractions.

This article describes the difference between deep work and shallow work, why it is important to do more deep work, and four rules to help you spend more time on deep work.

In the article about communication cells, multiple team board set-ups are described. These set-ups are especially useful in an environment where there are cycle times of seconds, minutes or hours, but become more difficult when the cycle time is longer than a day. If a task or a group of tasks takes you longer than a week, how can you discuss the daily KPI within the team?
Project work (for instance: engineering, quality departments and research & development) are known for their repetitive cycles of work that are similar, yet different in every case. For these departments, the obeya, which is also known as the war room, can be a valuable communication tool (Gort, 2015)

In this article, Elizabeth Stincelli writes that you should only take the lead in a situation when you:

• can see beyond the status quo
• are focussed
• motivating others
• confident

In a situation in which you lack one of these, or a collegue can do better than you: know it is ok to follow!