Brainstorming and Cost Improvement The brainstorming technique is attributed to Alex Faickney Osborne as explained in his 1953 book, Applied Imagination. The technique arose from frustration with the inability of employees to develop creative solutions for problems. Personal experience suggests this is a valuable tool when deployed appropriately and the guidelines are followed. If we […]

To really find the areas for cost improvement we must let go of our mental impediments to uncovering these opportunities. It is very probable that there are plenty of cost improvement possibilities. However, in our daily work execution we may not find the time to free our minds to consider these possibilities. A brainstorming exercise can go far to fuel the imagination, to open a “space” to think laterally at what may be possible. We have successfully employed this technique to:

Below is an excerpt from our book Pries, K., & Quigley, J. (2013). Classical Techniques. In Reducing process costs with lean, six sigma, and value engineering techniques (pp. 135-138). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. This is the second part, part one is located here. Miles also identified the concept of basic and secondary functions. Basic functions are the […]

Below is an excerpt from our book Pries, K., & Quigley, J. (2013). Classical Techniques. In Reducing process costs with lean, six sigma, and value engineering techniques (pp. 133-135). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.  FAST Introduction FAST is an acronym for functional analysis system technique. FAST allows us to reduce ambiguity in the definition of a functional product […]

We see some company responses to economic downturn are to eliminate staff as if that were the only way to become a viable company once again. We wonder if these companies have some cost improvement methodology behind them that would give their management other options than summarily removal of personnel.

The Seven Circles approach (De la Maza, Michael. Rapid Chess Improvement, 2002) uses a repetitive approach to developing automaticity in chess strategy. For those in the automotive world, it resembles a layered process audit somewhat. It requires different levels, different speeds, exercises, and more. We suggest this approach is a good way to intensively educate […]

The real kaizen is all about the 10,000 things. Maasaki Imai’s description of relentless, creeping quality improvement is apt. It also fits with the comprehensive philosophy of total quality management (TQM). We say “real” kaizen because we have so-called kaizen events that have nothing to do with inexorable cultural change and a whole to do […]

The sooner you move away from project management activities based upon hope, the sooner your organization makes a recovery to the efficient enterprise you desire. I have noticed a rash of project schedules wherein each task lays end to end as if the prediction of the; task start, progress, and completion times are known without […]