I'm using Value Added per Labor Hour to illustrate agile manufacturing.  In my last post, I went through a breakdown of Cost of Materials to provide illustrate some relevant concepts. 

Let's continue with Total Labor Hours, the denominator.  (Remember, we always want to reduce the denominator to make the outcome go up.)


Reduce the Total Labor Hours

1. Run at rate.  Do not run above.  Do not run below.  Run at rate.  Or takt time. Don't try to reduce Total Hours by driving employees to run faster.  If the rates are wrong, that's your fault, not the employees'.
2. Don't make scrap.  Scrap is the enemy. 
3. Don't make stuff that you're not going to ship right away.  Have as little finished inventory as you can manage.  Increase agility so that you can increase finished inventory turns.  If they don't want it delivered now, don't make it now.  That means run smaller lots.
4. Don't let stuff you're making sit around between process steps.  Improve processes so raw materials get made into a finished product and shipped quickly.  Don't let anything sit around.  Know how long stuff sits around.
5. Reduce changeover times.  Reduce the time it takes to get a first good piece after changing the tooling.  You're going to be running smaller lots and that means more changeovers.   But your total time spent doing changeovers isn't going to grow.
6. No operation accepts bad material, bad product, bad information, bad anything from a previous step or from suppliers.  Ever.  Just don't do it.  Manufacturing heroics ("We don't care how bad it looks when we get it....we just get it to run.") are very, very expensive.
7. Organize the workplace so that everything everybody needs is easy to find, easy to put away.
8. Make sure all tooling, equipment, supplies, machines work just the way they are supposed to all the time forever.  Never "make do".  No C-Clamps or duct tape.
9. Improve support processes and cycle times so that production is not waiting for tooling, supplies, materials, etc.  Ever.
   
10. Increase training, problem solving, involvement, and communicating hours.  The hours they are replacing are enumerated above.  They are not replacing productive hours.  They are creating productive hours from thin air.