Thin air: how wireless technology supports lean initiatives

Acknowledgments

Introduction-The Confusion of the Tongues

Chapter 1. Lean Wireless Is Already Here

Rules before Tools

Complex Business Environments Require Technology for Visibility

Lean Leaders Embrace Wireless

To Ignore Wireless Tools Is to Forgo Progress

Wireless in Lean and Six Sigma

The Marriage of Lean and Six Sigma

Lean's New Neighbor-Wireless

Wireless on the Value Stream

The Wireless Tsunami

Wireless = Modern

The Wired to Wireless Progression

Wireless, Near and Far

The Retail Driver

Wireless Growth Is a Step-Change Evolution

Brace Yourself: Wireless Momentum Will Only Quicken

Surprise-The Modern Network Is Already Here-We Need Only Plug In

How Lean Is This?

Endnotes

Chapter 2. Why Now? Lean Wireless and the Costs of Doing Business

The Unbearable Cost of Business

The Immovable Structural Costs

The Tax Burden

A More Inclusive Picture-Variable Costs

The Lean, Wireless, and Lean Wireless Value Propositions

Information Is Lean

America and Its Companies Require Wireless Strength

American Companies Require Near-Term Results (Not Solutions)

Wireless Provides Fast-Track ROT

Automation Means More Work-Not Less

Endnotes

Chapter 3. The Lean Wireless Missions

Adopt a New Paradigm: Rules Before Tools = Results

Tools Before Rules Is a Mistake

Attack Wireless Waste (iMuda)

iMuda

The iMuda of Complexity and Overkill

The iMuda of Choice

True Tales of Bad Choices: The Super Bowl Virus

True Tales 2: The Accidental Spy

The iMuda of Risk 2.0

The iMuda of Terabytes

Overcome the Inertia of Legacy

Focus First upon Internal Value Streams

Identify Opportunities for Wireless Value

Value from Mobile Workers and Equipment

Create Job-Specific and Micro-Value Streams

Apply Airsourcing as You Would Outsourcing or Offshoring

Return to Processes, and Mobilize Them

Plug Value Streams into the "Internet of Things"

The Intent of the Internet of Things

Redirect the Lean Mission from Making Things to Moving Things

The Internet of Computers versus the IOT

RTLS and WSNs

The 5Ws versus 5Ss

Why the IOT Is Not the Internet

Devise Lean, Universal Number Schemes

The EPC Numbering System

Numbering versus Serialization

The Challenges

The Answer: A Purposeful Lean Rollout

Ease the Disease of Wireless Ownership

The Answer: Find the Right Tool for the Right Job

Focus upon Essential Data

Practice Agnosticism-It Is Lean

Devices, Processes, and People Become "Nodes" on the Nerve Path

If Only It Were That Easy: Connecting the Edge and the Back End

Question Integration, Always

Smart-Edge Infrastructures

Simplified, Lower-Cost Visibility

Manage the Troublesome Social/Enterprise Interface

The Real Costs of Play at Work

So Long, Lunchpail

Millennial Learning Is Lean

Millennial Question Authority and Policy and Are Not above Defying Them

Tales beyond 2000: The End of Secrets

Viral Information for Good and for Ill

The Answer: Airsource and Automate Decisions and Behaviors

The Value of Airsourced and Automated Decisions

Not All Decisions Can Be Automated

Design Effective Interfaces

The Wearable, Always-on Interface

Keeping the Interfaces on Mission

Harness the Social Utility

Scalability: Use Wireless to Open the Loops

Scalability, Enterprise wide

Scalability into Supply Chain and Open Loops

The Requirement: Higher Visibility, Edge Intelligence

The Opportunity Finally Exists to Open the Loops

RTLS in the Open Loop

Case Study: Kanban Replenishment

Endnotes

Chapter 4. The Democratic Frontiers of Lean Wireless

Crowdsourcing: We All Own (and Drive) Innovation

The Wireless Library

The Wireless Athlete

Extreme Traceability, from Farm to Fork

The Lean Wireless Election: A Supply Chain Success

The Lean Wireless Election 2: Web 2.0 and Decision 2008

Lean Wireless President and Police

Wireless Justice

The Significance of iWIP

iWIP in Lean Manufacturing

The Healthcare Proving Ground, Part 1: Lean Wireless Inventory Management

A Lean Wireless Answer

Is This Truly Lean-And How Does It Apply to Other Verticals?

Measurements and Metrics

The End-to-End Supply Chain

Technology as a Tool in Healthcare

Pull-from-Demand

The Healthcare Proving Ground, Part 2: RTLS Adds Value

Controlling Cost and Risk

Democracy Marches On

Endnotes

Afterword (and Forward): Lean Wireless 2015

The Reality

Endnotes

Appendix A. Lean Glossary

Lean Principles

Lean Rules

Lean Concepts

Lean Tools

Appendix B. Wireless Glossary

Appendix C. Standards Used in Wireless Enterprises

Appendix D. Lean Wireless ROI

How Precisely Can We Measure the ROI of Lean Wireless?

The Barrier of Distrust

The Components of Any Cost

Presume Value (for the Sake of Argument), and Forge Ahead

Define Your Business with Baselining

Step 1. Conduct a Whiteboard Study

Step 2. Conduct a DILO Study

Step 3. Reconcile Process Maps and DILO

Step 4. Target a Short List of Process Improvements

Step 5. Choose between Proof of Concept or Full Steam Ahead

Conduct a Technical Evaluation

Step 1. Conduct an Environmental Analysis

Step 2. Select a Suitable Technology

Calculate Theoretical ROI

Step 1. Quantify the Benefits

Step 2. Quantify the Costs

Step 3. Calculate the Risks (in Dollars)

Step 4. At Last-Calculate ROI

Sidebar 1. How Not to Install RFID: 15 Blunders

Sidebar 2. How to Select a Wireless Integrator

Sidebar 3. WIP Management, RFID, and ROI

RFID for Work-in-Process

Enter RFID

RFID Metal Mount Tags for Work-in-Process

Endnotes

Index

The Authors