Welcome to the October 2008 edition of our monthly newsletter, Learning to Lean. In this month's edition, we focus on two key elements of lean: 5S and Problem Solving.

Announcements

Below is our remaining 2008 schedule of lean workshops. All sessions will take place at the Doubletree Club Hotel Orange County Airport in Santa Ana, CA.

Course	Date
Creating Continuous Flow Manufacturing Cells	Oct 15, 2008
Material Flow and Kanban	Oct 16, 2008
Lean Production Control and Inventory Mgmt.	Nov 12, 2008

Any of the above courses (plus many others) can be brought to your facility and customized to meet your requirements.

Click here for details on all of our training offerings, both on-site at your facility and public.

5S and 5 Why's

5S workplace organization and the 5 Why's approach to problem solving are among the most basic concepts of the Toyota Production System. Alone, they will make a difference in any operation, be it manufacturing or service. Without them, all of the other lean tools will be ineffective. That is because both 5S and problem solving are important for creating operational stability, the foundation of TPS.

In this issue, we feature three articles that should help you understand more about the 5 Why's and 5S. Firstly, we talk about problem solving. In our second article, we talk about the main elements of 5S. Our third article talks about sustaining 5S, often the most challenging aspect of a 5S implementation.

The materials referenced in this newsletter will teach you more about lean. If you would like to learn more, feel free to call us at 866-559-5598 or visit our website and click on "Contact Us."

To subscribe to this newsletter, visit http://www.emsstrategies.com/newslettersignup.htm Please feel free to forward Learning to Lean to colleagues or use it in your publication. We only ask that you do so in its entirety.

EMS Consulting Group, Inc. - 7040 Avenida Encinas, Suite 104-189 - Carlsbad, CA 92011