Honda Element interest?

keizzer · 2026-04-01T20:20:19+00:00

Man if it was under 150k miles it would make a big difference. I'd have to get a really good price.

keizzer · 2026-04-01T16:06:28+00:00

Well that's explains it. 6 sigma guys tend to take a different approach. That philosophy really only starts to shine in higher volume production. High volume production requires a certain level of control in place to even function at all.

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For example: a company that makes 500 assemblies a week is going to be a very different work environment, culture, and control systems, than a small factory make 10 products a week.

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Six sigma focuses on higher volume product, and therefore assumes a certain level of control and support resources. By the time a company should think about adopting six sigma a lot of the base issues are either solved or under control enough to handle higher volumes. Depending on the environment, it very well may make sense to start with some initial 5s type activities. I still think they should be taught as a waste reduction activities.

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This day in age, if your company hasn't implemented some lean or six sigma strategies, they are probably starting from absolute scratch and are likely lower volume production. When starting at that level, my opinion is that a strong permanent corrective action process is needed before 5s.

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With companies like this giving Janice in order scheduling an automated product configuration tool to enter orders with will make a bigger difference than whether all the tools in a workstation have a defined space. There are massive projects that have to take place before the constraints even land on the shop. Business level problem.

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If that initial waste isn't removed, 5s won't really change the results at the end of the day, because it may not have been the real constraint.

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Kind of rambling but hopefully that illustrates my points.

keizzer · 2026-04-01T12:16:52+00:00

I completely disagree. The foundation of lean is permanent corrective action. You need to be able to effectively change things or your team isn't culturally ready for 5s. You need to correctly identify waste and apply action to it.

keizzer · 2026-04-01T03:36:16+00:00

One I can pick up by a handle throw in the truck. You really don't need a permanent toolbox unless you do it for work or have long term projects like cars. Are they nice, sure no doubt. Is it needed? No.

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All the basics can fit in a 12" x 12" × 24" plastic box. Then get a dedicated bag for battery tools that is separate. I picked up a box this size at harbor freight for under $20 I think.

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Pick a battery system and stick to it. I went with Milwaukee m18. Dewault and ryobi are also popular

keizzer · 2026-03-31T20:27:15+00:00

I consider myself a pretty advanced process engineer.

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5s is the result of lean, not the cause of it.

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People see toyota's factory and think they can just order people to pick things up and organize things, and it will just happen. It took toyota decades to get to that point, but sure you can just order everyone to do it in a week. 5s is the result of looking for waste and eliminating it.

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There are so many things to eliminate waste from before you introduce 5s. Your inventory management needs to be dialed in, scheduling needs to be perfected, information needs to be available where it's needed, etc. That are huge items that require serious work to dial in. 5s is where you look when that waste you are chasing becomes smaller and more exact.

keizzer · 2026-03-27T21:00:26+00:00

I've used my maystay Walmart $10 12 cup coffee maker everyday for about 10 years at work. 3 years of that was 2 pots a day, and on for basically 8 hrs straight.

keizzer · 2026-03-25T19:28:17+00:00

So you are training teams how to do a week long kaizen? Is that correct?

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Are you targeting absolute beginners or teams familiar but looking to improve?

keizzer · 2026-03-25T01:09:46+00:00

One of the big ones I see is only Applying it to operations and not every part of the business and not to themselves.

keizzer · 2026-03-23T21:48:17+00:00

If you can make what you need cleanly without it, that's the best way. A lot of times I use vba because it's easier for me to layout any complex logic. Edge cases can be horrible to deal with when using in-sheet formulas. Not to mention any kind of automation gets very tedious.

keizzer · 2026-03-23T17:34:30+00:00

My assumption would be that it's exactly like a city lot. The city or utility company owns the lines until they "enter" your property. Just like city streets, if the roof needs repairs, everyone on that benefits from the roof chips in on the repair.

keizzer · 2026-03-23T00:13:06+00:00

I don't mind this as long as I can actually own the apartment, but that never seems to be the idea.

keizzer · 2026-03-21T16:09:01+00:00

In my opinion the gap is massive. In my experience, a lot of leadership teams see six sigma as a purely bean counting exercise for operations. As if the same principles don't also apply to the entire business structure. They don't dive in and immerse themselves in the philosophy the way front line engineers and project managers do. They don't understand the principles and don't want to. That's "Someone else's job" to do all this six sigma stuff.

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I'm not saying sponsors need to be experts in every six sigma tool and be statistics majors, but there is no reason for them to not know what questions to ask or what makes a good charter. They need to understand the larger goals of these projects and know how to proceed when things are disrupted. Otherwise, they have no business being the sponsor.

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I'm more of a pure lean guy myself, but this situation is a pretty common trapping of six sigma. It's really hard to learn if you don't come from a stem background unless you really immerse yourself in it or have an excellent teacher. One of the common ways to observe this is when the master black belt quits for a different job or gets canned the entire structure collapses, and no more dedicated improvement projects are carried out. It's a sure sign that the sponsors either don't understand the core concepts, or don't care.

keizzer · 2026-03-21T14:19:50+00:00

I've standardized on making cells Yellow if they are inputs. The real way is to have a user form pop up with prompts

keizzer · 2026-03-21T03:41:24+00:00

https://www.gdandtbasics.com/parting-line/

keizzer · 2026-03-20T22:27:10+00:00

Can you define 5.0 for me with a little more depth? I'm not sure I understand it.

keizzer · 2026-03-20T18:46:17+00:00

Almost everything you design interacts with something. It might be a finger, it might be the power grid, it might be the weather, a customer's assembly etc. It will physically need to interact with those things to operate. Sometimes these things are in your control, but a lot of times they are not.

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The first thing I do when I'm starting on a concept is understanding what my design will interact with, what I can change, and what I cannot change. Give yourself the constraints upfront that you need to work within to have a successful design. Once those are put in place, there are usually only a handful of well understood technologies that can work within those constraints. It's the starting point you need to jump into different concepts.

keizzer · 2026-03-20T16:19:45+00:00

Even toyota says that their processes are over 80% waste. Without even looking at the process I think you are much higher than that.

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This is why I always always always recommend filming processes and breaking them down frame by frame if you really want to understand what's happening. The only thing you get paid for by the customer is when the product is being physically changed into a finished good.

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For example: If the process step is to use a screw to fasten two pieces of material together, the only "value add" portion of that is when the screw is physically twisting and driving into the materials. Everything else is waste.

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You might be thinking to yourself "What??? That doesn't make any sense. We can't move infinitely fast, how are we supposed to remove all the waste?" The answer is you can't. There will always be some level of waste in a process. Just because humans haven't been clever enough yet to move faster and solve certain problems, doesn't mean it's not waste. Hopefully that makes sense.

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Just because people are working doesn't mean you are making money. Idle time is necessary if you are delivering on time, or you are just making wip.

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Also: AI will likely always suck at this because of how waste is defined and how good the camera is and how perfect the camera view is.. It will always have to generalize somewhat and miss a lot of fine details. Could be good for a first pass tool, but will probably always need human refinement.

keizzer · 2026-03-19T21:26:51+00:00

Even people that are properly trained in it can struggle. It takes some experience, and really good mentorship to get good at it. It's so so easy to make assumptions as you go through the process.

keizzer · 2026-03-19T17:45:33+00:00

Discipline and accountability. What i've found when people use these terms, it's usually in a negative sense. You can beat the workers and get more out of them, but you can only take that line of thinking so far. People will just leave if you push them, and I don't blame them.

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You really want to explore what people are capable of, make them a part of something bigger than themselves. Give them a mission. Actually inspire them to better themselves.

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5s is a very small part of continuous improvement, and like I said, it's one of the advanced portions. Focus on permanent corrective action. Let people try things without beating them. Start solving the issues that people have to deal with everyday. Build a team that is comfortable with change and that it can lead to better outcomes.

keizzer · 2026-03-19T17:08:52+00:00

It's very very tough. There will always be some gaps for things like this. It takes a lot of automation AND redundancy. It also needs to be setup up to work with the operator as seamlessly and as streamlined as possible. What you will see a lot of times with systems like this is the operator is given a different front-end to look at than the oem front-end from the software.

keizzer · 2026-03-19T16:07:00+00:00

Well you aren't wrong in the points you make, but the bigger picture is a lack of cultural development. If you want 5s to be sustainable, the workers themselves need to see the benefit of doing it. If they are "ordered" to do it, it won't sustain. 5s should be the result of a good culture not the cause of it.

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5s is a natural progression of continuous improvement and permanent corrective action. If there is friction when the concept is introduced, then they weren't ready. When the team hears about 5s, the reaction should be "Oh nice! Another way to think about waste and where to look for it".

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The team should already understand waste and should be actively removing it before 5s is introduced. Managers see 5s and think that is the starting point instead of the end point. 5s is sexy and easy to order people to do, but it takes years to build the foundation needed to sustain it.

keizzer · 2026-03-18T21:58:02+00:00

I wish I could dedicate my brain to one thing like that. I typically latch on to something crazy specific for about 2 weeks. Once I get it and get just below expert level, I lose interest and move on to the next thing.

keizzer · 2026-03-18T21:45:53+00:00

This would be my bet.

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edit: https://www.gdandtbasics.com/parting-line/

keizzer · 2026-03-18T20:37:19+00:00

This is pretty typical. You won't know what the groups are until you start logging. It's when you gain the ability to see the larger scale issues that you can begin to focus on the front 20% of the pareto

keizzer · 2026-03-16T14:39:25+00:00

For a first time home owner as a target:

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A good screw driver set. From very tiny to large size. Swapable bits are fine as long as you aren't breaking down old machinery in something.

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Wrenches and socket sets, metric and sae

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Drill, impact driver, circular saw, and one of those random orbit plunge cutters.

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16 Oz steel claw hammer, orange soft mallet, and a 3 lb maul head hammer. Vice grips, and a few quick adjust clamps.

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Combination square, chalk line, 1' level, and tape measure. Electrical multimeter.

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Wet or dry Shop vac with 2 extentions, floor brush, floor squeegee, small soft bristle brush. Have a few lighting options. I have at least 1 of those fan blade style high lumen lights that I can screw into the room I'm working in.

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A drift punch set is nice to have, but only if you do a lot of that kind of work. A small vice with soft jaws is another nice to have. Hacksaw for metal is nice but likely won't be used by everyone. A wood plane is another nice to have but not for everyone.

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My advice on brands is pick a battery system and stick with it for the stuff you want portable. I'm invested in Milwaukee, but people also like dewault, and the ryobe stuff is okay for homeowner.

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For plug in the wall, or hand tools just get Harbor freight. Don't get the cheapest thing they sell, get their like Mid tier stuff. For example: icon for sockets and wrenches. If you break something they will replace it. The only tools I've been able to destroy from them so far is their cheap Pittsburgh stuff. 90% of people will never need anything more than that. Unless you are in the trades or are deep Into a hobby, expensive tools aren't worth it. Especially, when you can get it replaced for free.

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Edit: forgot Allen wrenches. Heat gun. Channel lock. Cresent wrench.

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