Instrumental Tools

The following tools have been instrumental in helping numerous clients. These are intended to be viewed as an augmentation of the existing Lean, 6 Sigma and Theory of Constraints tools, not a displacement or substitute:

•  Ideas that are Made to Stick is a brief summary of a book called Made to Stick  on the subject of helping people learn and act upon ideas.
• Magnet Layout Tool is a tool for rapidly brainstorming potential floor or workstation layouts for moving processes into “flow” order.
•  Separate High-volume processes from Low-volume processes focuses on a concept that is sometimes called “Focus Factories.”
•  Pain X Frequency introduces some tips for how to identify central process constraint candidates relatively quickly.
•  Kanban (Visual) Inventory is an overview of how to “see” your Work-In-Process Inventory levels for real-time visual feedback on process performance.

Additional resources are listed in Mr. Ward’s client suggested reading library.