Kaizen Assembly : Designing, Constructing, and Managing a Lean Assembly Line

Emphasizing manual assembly, this book shows readers how to design, construct, and manage a world-class assembly process. It covers time and motion studies, waste reduction, standard work, 5S, line balancing, and quality at the source. It contains figures and illustrations, including workstation-specific pictures of the bike as it is built.

It is easy to learn the philosophy and the concepts of kaizen. It is quite another challenge to translate the philosophy into action. While most books expound on the underlying principles and theory, Kaizen Assembly: Designing, Constructing, and Managing a Lean Assembly Line takes you step-by-step through an actual kaizen event. This approach demonstrates in detail the mindset, the processes, and the practical insight needed to transform your current assembly line into a world-class lean operation.

Chris Ortiz brings the experience of over 150 successful kaizen events to the pages of this unique guide. Using clear, succinct, and unambiguous language rather than more general and esoteric terms found in other books, he explains how to implement waste reduction, 5S, time and motion studies, line balancing, quality-at-the-source, visual management, and workstation and assembly line design. Taking a unique approach, the book follows an example of the assembly process for an electric bike including illustrations of nearly every step along the way. Ortiz even includes the most valuable teaching tool of all: past mistakes, how they were overcome, and how to identify and avoid them.

Providing expert guidance that will last long after the consultants have left, Kaizen Assembly supplies the tools you need to make kaizen and lean assembly a permanent fixture at the heart of the shop floor.