Mike Rother
Mike is also a co-author of Learning to See: value-stream mapping to create value and eliminate muda, a Shingo Research prize winner. He also co-developed the Training to See kit that teaches facilitators how to run value-stream mapping workshops. His latest book is Toyota Kata (McGraw-Hill). Mike is an engineer, a researcher, teacher, consultant, and speaker on the subjects of management, leadership, improvement, adaptiveness, and change in human organizations. His affiliations have included the Industrial Technology Institute (Ann Arbor), the University of Michigan College of Engineering, the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Engineering and Automation (Stuttgart), and the Technical University Dortmund. Mike began his career in the manufacturing division of Thyssen AG in Germany. He lives in Ann Arbor, MI, and Cologne, Germany.

Rick Harris
Rick is also the co-author of Making Materials Flow: a lean material-handling guide for operations, production-control, and engineering professionals, a Shingo Research prize winner in 2005. Rick learned the realities of manufacturing during 15 years at GM, beginning as an operator and working his way up to first line manager. He received his lean education at Toyota’s Georgetown, KY, plant, where he was a member of the startup team and an assembly manager. Rick continued his lean training at the Tsutsumi Assembly Plant in Toyota City, Japan. He pioneered the "reverse flow" process to achieve dramatic increases in operator efficiency. He also has extensive experience developing layouts that facilitate one-piece flow, operator flexibility, first-time-through quality, optimum uptime, and reduced capital investment.

• Don't Be Fooled by Fake Flow
  Author Rick Harris, in the December 2001 IIE Solutions magazine, tells you how to spot fake flow and what to do about it.
• Do You Really Have Continuous Flow in Assembly?
  Author Mike Rother discusses continuous flow in cells and the design pitfalls often found in assembly cells.
• Crossing Automation’s "Great Divide" Dooms Continuous Flow At the Pacemaker Process
  Learn what level of automation is needed to get the 95% or 100% uptime you need at a pacemaker process.

Workshop

Creating Continuous Flow
Through instruction, class discussions, and hands-on exercises this workshop will take you through the implementation sequence and the use of formulas, forms, and concepts so you know “what to do Monday morning” when you return to work. You’ll use a realistic manufacturing factory example to:

• Identify and time the actual work elements
• Distribute the elements among the proper number of operators in relation to takt time
• Encourage operator involvement in improving the cell
• Balance operator work elements to expose waste
• Arrange machines and workstations
• React to changes in demand
• Select the right level of automation
• Sustain the gains through an overlapping timetable of audits for operators, team leaders, supervisors, and area managers

• Foreword by Jim Womack, Dan Jones, and John Shook
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to Creating Continuous Flow
• Part 1: Getting Started

Book Excerpts

• Foreword by Jim Womack, Dan Jones, and John Shook
• Table of Contents
• Introduction to Creating Continuous Flow
• Part 1: Getting Started