WIPSIM

Working together

Our experts team’s support

We experienced a lot of workshop management projects in various activity sectors.

We prefer Taylor-made solutions, according to precise needs, more than standardized solutions. Each project we accompanied until now is different from the others. We consider the business particularities of each company we work with.

We provide you our expertise and our client feedback by supporting your projects in three main steps: Analysis, Deployment and Durability.

Analysis

In the analysis step, we provide you our expertise as well as a new perspective to recommend you the best improvement solutions in your flow management. These solutions will be based on different management approaches according to your production’s features.

This first step takes place before an eventual deployment decision. We will provide you the estimated profits reachable by setting up the improvement levers that we recommended you.

Simultaneously, we can organize a seminar about advanced methods of flow management. The steering group will then hold all the cards before starting the improvement project.

This analysis step contains the following elements:

Field surveys, conservations with the main managers, data analysis,
Advanced flow management training for the steering committee,
Report about the choice made on the best methods to implement and the achievable performance benefits (works in process, lead times, WCR, ROI).

After this first step, and regarding the reachable profits, you can set up the flow improvement project with safety.

Deployment

In this step we implement with you the tools and methods that you decided on the previous analysis step.

We are working in a collaborative way so that the future users can become acquainted with the main management approaches and tools that they will use on a daily basis.

This step contains the following elements:

Precise design and simulation of the current and future line functioning,
Identification of the most efficient improvement actions,
Lead times and work in process threshold optimization,
Designing and modeling the new management tools,
Training the operators on the provided tools and methods.
Help for the functioning procedures setup,
Support for the shift towards the new processing method.

After this step, your new management system is running, but we still support you for the durability of the project!

Durability

It is now time to wedge the new standards in place in the famous PDCA cycle, in other words to integrate the continuous improvements over time.

In this step, we are here to adjust with you the deployed tools and procedures. We are also available to help you integrating and familiarizing with the processes.

This trial period is normal in every path towards change. It is important to not underestimate it in order to ensure the success of the whole project.

The main levers activated to support the transition are the following:

Check for the good functioning of the procedures,
Routine operations establishment,

Identification of opportunities for improvement,
Consolidation of the continuous improvement baseline.

Our support in detail

The analysis step

The analysis step aims at identifying the best fitting management solutions for your situation.

Our production management business experts team is the only one able to process this step. It is essential for us to analyze in detail your production’s features before all. In this way, we will provide you the more efficient management approaches.

The analysis is organized during one on-site day (sometimes two, depending on the perimeter). We will go through the following elements:

Product families trajectories analysis,
Work in process and lead times analysis,
Bottlenecks and resources identification,
Best fitting management solutions,
Forecast gains in lead times, WCR and service rate,
Obstacles and hazards identification,
Proposal pf a flow improvement set up roadmap,
Report writing with the results of the study,
Report presentation.

During this analysis step, we also organize a seminar about advanced flow management methods.
This seminar is designed for the steering committee that will work on the future improvement projects.
Organized as a team-building activity, it allows to provide you our field expertise, and to build-up a good dynamic within the project managers. This seminar takes one day.

At the end of step one, you will have all the necessary informations to take a YES/NO decision regarding the project.

If you decide to set up the improvements, it is now time for the second step of deployment.

The deployment step

This step involves setting up the solutions validated by mutual agreement at the end of the prior analyze.

We start by modeling and simulating in details the perimeter’s flows to manage. We involve here our WipSim scientific calculations simulator, to optimize the work in process level upstream the manual workcenters and machines. It also puts standard batch sizes to the test based on the setting time of the line’s bottlenecks.

Then the simulation provides:

The work in process to achieve on each workcenter,
The best throughput to achieve from the available resources,
The shortest lead time to aim for,
The resources’ forecast OEE,
The Value Stream Mapping ratio to expect,

It also provides a list of Lean Manufacturing actions to settle with priority according to the bottlenecks (using the Theory of constraints) to improve even more your line’s performance.

At this stage, it is important to train your teams to the new workshop management methods to come. An explanation about the new everyday practices is a necessary step for the change process. For this purpose, we recommend the use of a half-day Workshop game.

After that, we engage the design and realization of the flow management tool with you. This could be a physical control panel (like a Kanban board for example), or a quick solution.

Some workshops use a physical board during the trial period, to establish the management method and to familiarize with it, then develop a digital control panel. Others directly start with a virtual board. Our opinion is that there is no better solution. However, we believe that the digital will become a workshop management standard thanks to its great advantages.

For a physical board, we jointly create the modeling in order to take into account the ideas and expectations of the future users. During this modeling time, we bring concrete solutions for our experience to build the board. This way we are convinced to give you a functioning visual management tool, in line with the Lean’s practices.

In case of implementing the digital SmartWip solution, we design and set up each secreen of the control panel by the flow characteristic and your choices. During this step as well, future users contributing to the setting choices is essential. A sandbox mode allows you to live-test the results. When your control panel is connected to your ERP or MES, we are here to set up the data transfer interfaces.

After the modeling, we have to write down jointly the functioning processes for the panel to be used by the teams on a daily basis. During this period, we are paying close attention to the integration of offline flows (incidents, reworks, scraps, partial deliveries…) in the procedure.

The go-live day comes next, preceded by a last tools and processes check-up.

The go-live involves the concrete use of the new flow management approach. We proceed to a gradual transition in order to not disturb the production.

After that, the project enters in its durability step.

The durability check step

The durability step begins right after the production deployment, with the aim to support you improving your new organization’s performances.

We help you to capitalize on new occurring situations in order to:

Improve and enrich the standards,
Identify new decision-making and hazard-solving levers,
Point out the gap between the forecast situation and the reality and set up continuous improvement processes.

This step is divided within time, in order to optimize the support we provide you until the achievement of the improvement goals.

We materialize the durability check by organizing on-site visits and regular videoconferencing meetings, that always goes with a working report detailing a list of improvements to set up.

Our trainings

We are QUALIOPI certified (French training certification of excellence), and we regularly organize training within companies or inter companies on our fields of expertize:

CONWIP pull system initiation,
CONWIP pull system line management,
Become a CONWIP pull system trainer,
The basics of the line design with the WipSim® simulator,
Upgrading the line design with the WipSim® simulator,
Manage a workshop on a day-to-day basis with SmartWip®,
Customize SmartWip® for a workshop,
Get an advanced use of SmartWip®.

Our trainings in detail

CONWIP trainings

We regularly organize intra and inter-enterprises trainings about the CONWIP -CONstant Work In Process), based on simulation exercises with the Conwip serious game (Jeu du Conwip®).

The ConWip serious game (Jeu du Conwip®) is a physical simulation of a production line, used to explain the functioning of a ConWip loop and to prepare future users to manage their workshop with the ConWip. This training is designed for the executives, the technicians and the main workers. It doesn’t require any prior knowledge. This training is often used as a support while implementing a CONWIP production line, in order to create a common knowledge foundation about the CONWIP within the steering committee, and to prepare all the future users of the line before the implementation.

Download the Conwip serious game page (pdf 174 ko/French)

Consult the next dates of our inter-enterprise CONWIP pull system trainings.

We organize many trainings, adapted to all the operators of your company, that enable to familiarize yourself in a basic or advanced way to the flow management with the CONWIP pull system.

You are a manager, workshop supervisor or team supervisor and you are looking for a concrete way for your operators to understand the main principles of the work with CONWIP? Go for the training CW01 – CONWIP pull system Initiation (pdf 197 ko/French)

You are a line supervisor, continual improvement manager or project manager; you want to learn how to set up a CONWIP in your workshop and how to use it? The training CW02 – CONWIP pull system line management (pdf 200 ko/French) is made for you.

To choose the training fitting your needs, feel free to read our training catalog or directly contact our team.

WipSim® simulator trainings

Formation au simulateur WipSim

We organize intra and inter-enterprises trainings about the WipSim software to enable your full disposal of its features. The WipSim software users then become entirely autonomous for the line design, the dimensioning of CONWIP loops and the input of Lean projects with high priority. These trainings are divided in two levels:

WS01 – The fundamentals of CONWIP pull system line design with the WipSim software (pdf 138 ko/French)
WS02 – Perfectioning the line design in CONWIP pull system with the WipSim software (pdf 152 ko/French)

Both are made for technicians, engineers and executives who know the fundamental of production management, pull system and Lean Manufacturing.

SmartWip® control panels trainings

We organize training sessions to the use of the SmartWip digital control panels.
The goal is to enable the familiarization of the users with the touch-screens and all the software’s features to use the software to its full potential.

These trainings are divided in two levels:

Manage a workshop on a day-to-day basis with SmartWip® – SW01 (pdf 145 ko)

Customize SmartWip® for your workshop- SW02 (pdf 184 ko)

Users exchange seminars

We also organize seminars between WipSim users to exchange about the new pull system management approaches and about concrete use of the Theory of constraints: line management implementations, visual management techniques, feedbacks on profits made…

Read the complete Wipsim training catalog (pdf 553 ko/French)

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Additional Information

Access to each of our training courses generally takes 2 months. For more precise information concerning the date of each course, please contact us using the contact form on the website.

The quality report on our services is available on request via the site’s contact form.

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