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Where Valves Are Used: On the Sea and Under the Ground

Valve Magazine takes a look at the roles valves and actuators play in two unique industry segments—marine and mining.

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Severe Service Valves Respond to New Pressures

Valves are called upon to respond to increasingly difficult conditions.

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Engineering Challenges for Flow Control of Reclaimed Water

Opportunities and challenges for the growing use of reclaimed water for irrigation and other purposes.

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The True Meaning of Double Block and Bleed

Rudy Garza of Exxon Mobil Upstream explains that while many think their block and bleed valves provide double isolation, they don’t—and that could be dangerous.

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Check out the sampling of new products from some of many suppliers that serve valve, actuator and control manufacturers.

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WEB EXCLUSIVE

Past the Obstacles to Lean Manufacturing

Written by Peter Cleaveland, Contributing Editor, ValveMagazine.com
Friday, 30 April 2010 00:39
*Is Lean the answer for manufacturing? Or is it just the latest flavor of the month peddled by management gurus? We interviewed experts in the field to find out:* Lean manufacturing, which had its origin in the Toyota Production System (TPS), is built around getting rid of waste — defined as any activity that does not add value (whatever a customer will pay for) to the product. Taiichi Ohno, father of TPS, identified the Seven Wastes (muda, in Japanese) — defects, overproduction, motion, transportation, waiting, inventory and processing — that TPS works to eliminate. But there is much more to Lean than that, says Mike Kuta, Managing Partner at Productivity, LLC. “Lean is made up of just-in-time; TPM, which is total productive maintenance; STS, which is socio-technical systems or high-performance workplace; TQM, total quality management; and I would throw in …Six Sigma, variation reduction,” and Lean is not complete without including elements of all of these. “Most people don’t understand that,” he says, “and they pick and choose.”
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