Lean Management Tools: An Ultimate Overview For 2021

Introduction Organizations of all sizes are constantly looking to make their processes more efficient in order to remain competitive. This is where lean management tools play a significant role. With the increased elimination of waste in each process and system, Lean manufacturing helps organizations to improve continuously. Lean management tools allow a variety of manufacturers and organizations to streamline their production lines and services. These tools address different needs. They can vary from managing people to structuring work more efficiently. Lean management tools can and are used in various industries including manufacturing, engineering, and finance. Lean management tools and techniques essentially eliminate any invaluable processes, which makes them relevant to any business looking to increase their efficiency. Here is a lean management tools list that highlights the best of the lean principles and methodology. 5S 1Value-Stream MappingKaizen and Kaizen BlitzTakt, Jidoka, KanbanPoka-yokeSMED 1. 5S 1 Five S is mainly a management tool that is used in physical production operations. This tool aims to increase efficiency, maintain organisation, and reduce waste. It refers to a set of practices that establish order and purposefulness. Similar to most Lean practices, the 5S method also began in Japan. The tool includes five terms, which are workplace practices that allow for lean production. The five terms are: Seiri: This principle refers to the separation of the needed from the unneeded items. These can include tools, parts, materials, and paperwork. The unneeded should be discarded. Seiton: Whatever remaining items are left must be arranged neatly. All items must have a place and every item must stay in its place. Seiso: The workplace must be kept clean and free from dirt, garbage, and dust. Seiketsu: The workplace must have established standards that must be adhered to. The best practices must be standardised through visual management. Shitsuke: Habits and behaviours must be established and implemented to ensure the established standards are maintained long-term. The Five Ss in English are Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. A sixth S is added in certain lean practices. This is the ‘ 1’, which refers to: Safety: Safety procedures must be established and practised at all times. 2. Value-Stream Mapping Value-stream mapping is a lean visual management tool used to organize all the components needed to deliver the product or service. This tool helps analyse and streamline the entire process of production. It is used in a variety of industries including healthcare, finance, and manufacturing. Value-stream mapping is used to identify the whole value stream and can determine where flow and process improvements are needed. A simple flow diagram of every step needed to bring a product from order to delivery is mapped to highlight any opportunities for improvement. 3. Kaizen and Kaizen Blitz Kaizen is one of the oldest lean project management tools and refers to the continuous improvement of an entire value stream. It can also involve the improvement of an individual process with the goal of increasing value and minimizing waste. Kaizen Blitz is also called Kaikaku in Japanese. It is the revolutionary and radical improvement of an operational value system. It involves quick changes or improvements as opposed to the step-by-step Kaizen. 4. Takt, Jidoka, Kanban Takt time is the rate at which products must be made in a process in order to meet customer demand. In other words, it is the available production time divided by the customer demand. A takt image is used to create a visual understanding and awareness of takt time, particularly in production processes that are not part of the final assembly line. Upstream production cells and shared processes can benefit greatly from the use of takt images. Jidoka was conceptualised under Toyota, and means “automation with human intelligence”. It continues to be one of the main pillars of the Toyota production system. This principle prevents defects from moving to the next phase of production and avoids the waste of making a series of defective items. Jidoka highlights the causes of any problems because the work stops immediately when a problem first occurs. This leads to improvements in the processes that build in quality by eliminating the root causes of defects. A kanban is a signalling device that gives authorization and instructions for the production or withdrawal of items in a pull system. Kanban cards are the best-known and most common example of these signals. Kanban has two functions in a production operation - instruct processes to make products and instruct material handlers to move products. 5. Poka-yoke Poka-yoke or error-proofing refers to methods that help operators avoid mistakes in their work that are caused by choosing the wrong part, leaving out a part, installing a part backward, and more errors of this nature. 6. SMED SMED stands for Single Minute of Exchange Die, which is a process for changing over production equipment from one part number to another in as little time as possible. The goal is to have SMED in under ten minutes. Conclusion This brings us to the end of the discussion about lean management tools. Lean principles may have originated in manufacturing, but they are now an integral part of management across several industries as seen with the proliferation of lean management tools. They are based on the practice of continuous improvement, which is crucial for setting up a framework for an effective and efficient organization. Want to know all relevant information about your future? Head to our website to check out the best and the latest information about various fields to build your knowledge and scope. ALSO READ Seven Basic Tools of Quality: An Important Asset in 2021Important Six Sigma Tools To Know In 2021

Isha Upadhyay...

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May 4, 2021

Talend ETL: An Interesting Guide In 4 Points

Introduction Data is vital in today’s day and age. Companies are dealing with huge amounts of data scattered across different locations and different sources. It is available in different formats, structured or unstructured. So to manage this vast complex data, we have a one-stop solution called the ETL tool.  ETL tools are programs that integrate all three processes into a single application. Talend ETL is one such tool.      ETL stands for Extract, Transform, Load.  Extract: It is the process of reading the data from heterogeneous or homogeneous sources. Transform: It is the process of cleaning the data, analyzing, and applying various functions to convert it into meaningful results. Load: It is the process of transferring the processed data to the target location using minimal resources. There is a race going on today in big data. In this intensely competitive world, Talend is a leading unified platform for data integration that enables every company to harness the power of their enterprise information to get ahead. Talend is like a critical infrastructure for a data-driven world. It's built for the modern big data and cloud-centric environment, allowing businesses to turn data into actionable business insights. What is Talend?Talend ProductsAdvantages of Talend ETLReal-Life Use Case of Talend ETL 1. What is Talend? Talend is an open-source software integration platform or a vendor that offers data planning, data quality, data integration, application integration, data processing, cloud storage, and big data software solutions. It helps businesses becoming data-driven by making data more accessible, enhancing the data quality, and quickly moving the data to where it is required for real-time decision making.  Talend first joined the market in 2005, becoming a leader in the area of commercial open source data integration applications. Founded on the simple premise that there has to be an easy way for people to connect with their data. Using the power of the open-source business model, Talend is set out to modernize the data integration market. The company is led by some of the brightest minds in Silicon Valley. They share a mission of helping companies operate with real-time insights about their customers, markets, and business and translate them into a competitive advantage.  2. Talend Products Talend Product Suites has three broad categories: Talend Platforms: This includes platforms like big data, data management, data services, hybrid clouds, and enterprise integration. Talend Enterprise: This is the licensed version that includes cloud integration, data integration, data preparation, and big data. Talend Open Studio: TOS for data integration is a widely used Talend ETL tool. TOS can quickly merge, transform, and upgrade data from a variety of sources. TOS umbrella includes MDM, ESB, BPM, data quality, data integration, and big data.  3. Advantages of Talend ETL Before companies can do anything meaningful with data, it first needs to be collected, accurate, and accessible, and this is what Talend does incredibly well. It has proven to do this at least seven times faster and at one-fifth the cost. It provides a user-friendly java based, drag and drops user interface. All the designs are future proof which is one of the key selling points.  It generates a native code, allowing you to run your data pipelines across all cloud providers and achieve optimal performance across all platforms.  You can easily handle all of the steps involved in the ETL process with Talend Open Studio. It has all the components designed in a customized way. It is an eclipse-based tool and job designer. It has a GUI with a simple drag and drops feature, making it user-friendly. Using simple drag-and-drop, you can easily map data between the source and destination systems. Talend Open Studio for DI allows for more flexible data integration. It has a high level of connectivity, adaptability, and a smooth extraction and transformation process flow. 4. Real-Life Use Case of Talend ETL Industry: Media and Entertainment About Orange: Since 2006, Orange has been the leading group brand in internet, television, and mobile services in most of the markets. It also provides telecommunications services to businesses worldwide under the Orange Business service brand.  Use Case: Sales Commission  Challenges: Improving revenue commission with vendor partners by analyzing the sales data. Results:  Two dozen sales reports from Talend-fed data warehouse enabled the company to analyze its business in detail. The learning curve of Talend is very less, and only 1 training session was required by the technical team to learn. Adopting Talend did not require alterations to any of the existing processes. The availability of sales reports and its analysis helped the company get traction on revenue sharing.  Conclusion The challenges of integrating and systems were hard two decades ago when all systems were on-premise. Now, this is even more complex and important since most of the companies have systems in the cloud such as salesforce, CRM, or Marketo. They are moving more and more of their data and applications to cloud platforms like Amazon web services. Now they need to connect their systems from the cloud to their own premise data sources and vice-versa.   Talend data fabric is a solution with the capability to meet companies’ data integration needs regardless of whether the data resides in the cloud or on-premises, running in real-time or batch. It connects all enterprise systems to empower companies to drive their business in innovative ways never before possible. If you are interested in making a career in the Data Science domain, our 11-month in-person Postgraduate Certificate Diploma in Data Science course can help you immensely in becoming a successful Data Science professional.  ALSO READ Django vs Node JS: An Easy Guide in 4 PointsTop 30 ETL Tools: A Complete Guide

Ajay Sarangam...

Author

ServiceNow ITSM Tools: A Comprehensive Guide For 2021

Introduction If you find it a tough task to handle all the service requests and if you feel that you are still stuck with processing the service requests manually, then it is time that you start using ServiceNow ITSM. ServiceNow is a single system that records details on the cloud server to solve all the bottlenecks that you may be facing internally in your organization. Five main ServiceNow ITSM concepts Let us now discuss the main Servicenow ITSM services in detail. Incident ManagementProblem ManagementChange ManagementKnowledge ManagementServiceNow Tools Demo 1. Incident Management An incident in ServiceNow is when the user faces a problem and wishes to connect with the support team. The first thing that he needs to do is to record all these details in the user form. An incident is nothing but an issue that the user or multiple users report, which gets documents under a unique record ID. Here are the steps that go in the process of recording the incident management. Step 1 is the Classification of the problem, which could be because of the software, hardware, or the network. It could also be caused by the combination. Step 2 is Priorities, where the incident that is reported is handled based on its priority level. Priority is decided based on the impact of the incident on the company and its level of urgency. The priority is divided into critical, high, moderate, low, and planning.  You do not have to solve the incident but also avoid the incidents that are related. You need to work to reduce the incident volume. This is possible only by identifying the underlying problem. And here is where problem management comes into the picture. 2. Problem Management Problem management is about finding out what the root cause of any problem is. The analysis is done to understand ways to reduce or mitigate the incident. Like for example, if there are many incidents that are related to email, then a root cause analysis is done to identify it. Step 1 is to identify and then log the issue, which can be done manually by the IT personnel or by creating an incident record. Step 2 is to investigate and update on the problem, which can be through communication on email. Step 3 is to resolve the problem. Once the problem is solved then, any related incident also gets resolved by itself. Once the problem gets identified, then the issue that is causing the problem needs fixing. This brings us to change management. 3. Change management Change management involves the complete lifecycle of the changes that are proposed and the changes that are reflected. Once the incident is reported, a root analysis is performed. A change request is created based on the situation. The change task is then planned, and after it gets completed, the associated problem and incident is resolved or closed. The change requests are classified under standard and emergency. The standard change request needs a written approval and has a set of procedures in place. In case of an emergency change, a verbal intimation is enough. It is important to have a file repository that covers the queries that were previously supported and the articles that may be useful to run the platform. This is where Knowledge management plays a key role. 4. Knowledge Management The knowledge base at ServiceNow contains FAQs, articles, and topics on troubleshooting. There are several contents available with information across various categories. The manager or the owner can add the articles. The entitled contributors can also add information here. The rights are also given to the admin to contribute articles to the Knowledge base. 5. ServiceNow Tools Demo If you are clear with the concept of ServiceNow ITSM, then let us move to explore the ServiceNow ITSM tools list demo. Here we will walk you through the lifecycle starting from the incident and then carrying out the root cause analysis, which helps to avoid such problems in the future. Change requests that are needed to resolve the incident and solve the problem are also crucial to know. The problem can be exported in the form of an article in the knowledge base. Step1 is to create the incident. The incident is created in the ServiceNow platform. The record will contain the organizational impact and its effect on the business. Step 2 is to create the Problem and carry out the root cause analysis. After understanding the dependency, a problem task is created and then assigned to the particular user. Step 3 is to create the Change Requests. The problems have been identified, and the assignee now takes a call on whether the change request is required for problem resolution. Step 4 is to close the incident. This happens when the change request form is closed or completed, and the problem is resolved. Step 5 is to import the problem into the Knowledge Base. It is possible to extract the information from the form directly, and this can then be added to the knowledge base in order to offer support in case the same issue arises in the future. Conclusion In this article, we have discussed the ServiceNow ITSM tools exploring the domain depth of the information technology service management or ITSM. You are now aware of how the ITSM gets implemented in the ServiceNow platform. If you are looking for an extensive course in Cloud Computing, then the 5.5-month online Postgraduate Certificate Program In Cloud Computing offered by Jigsaw Academy can be of help. This program helps interested learners become complete Cloud professionals. ALSO READ Popular Microservices Tools You Must Know In 2021

Ajay Ohri...