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The Right Approach: Best Practices: It’s Only Common Sense

One of the fascinating things about Best Practices is that it is occurring everywhere—and many times without the knowledge of the person or organization doing it! How can this be? Most best practice principles fall under a very old-fashioned ideal that some of us still remember: common sense.

We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Lean

I recently visited a small family-owned client, and during the course of a discussion with the owner the topic of Lean came up. Ned, the owner, was more than eager to share his position that they didn’t feel the need for Lean. He went on to explain that his company had been in business for over 50 years, and that the average employee tenure was 23 years of service.

Ned was very proud to tell me that over the years this experienced workforce had honed their manufacturing best practices to the point that they felt no additional benefit would be gained with Lean. I said, “OK Ned, let’s take a walk.”

One of the first workstations we visited had a pegboard with all of the operator’s hand tools outlined and hanging from it. I asked Ned what this was all about, and he proudly stated, “Rita noticed that her people spent a lot of time looking for their tools every morning before they could start work, so we decided it would be a good idea to place all the tools in easy reach, and give each tool a visual aid for where it belongs.”

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Editor's Note: This article originally appear in the April 2016 issue of The PCB Magazine.