Albaloy: A plating finish comprised primarily of copper, tin and zinc which provides good electrical performance, but unlike silver, albaloy is highly resistant to tarnish. Being non-magnetic, it also provides excellent passive intermodulation (PIM) performance comparable to silver.
Amplifier: An active device where a signal is fed to the input of the amplifier and an amplified, higher power level, signal of the same frequency as the input signal, exists the amplifier. A measure of how much the signal was amplified is called the amplifier gain.
Amplitude Balance: The maximum peak-to-peak amplitude difference (in dB) between the output ports of a power divider or hybrid coupler over the specified frequency range.
Attenuation: Loss of signal amplitude or power measured in dB.
Attenuation Accuracy: The amount of variation in magnitude from the nominal value across the entire frequency band.
Attenuator: A passive device or network that absorbs part of the input signal and transmits the remainder with minimal distortion. Attenuators are used to extend the dynamic range of devices such as power meters and amplifiers, reduce signal levels to detectors, match circuits and are used daily in lab applications to aid in product design. Attenuators are also used to balance out transmission lines that otherwise would have unequal signal levels.
Bandpass Filter: A filter that passes a band of frequencies and rejects higher and lower frequencies outside the band.
Bandwidth: The with of the pass band of a bandpass filter. It is bounded by the upper and lower frequencies of the pass band pass filter.
Base Station: A fixed transmitter/receiver with which a mobile radio transceiver establishes a connection link to gain access to the public-switched telephone network.
Bias Tees: A passive device used in applications to inject/remove DC voltages in RF circuits without affecting the RF signal through the main transmission path. Ideal for remote powering of bi-directional amplifiers (BDAs), repeaters and tower top amplifiers (TTAs) by BTS control modules.
Center Frequency: It is the center frequency (mid-point) of the pass band of a band pass filter.
Circuit: The strip line element (or sometimes microstrip) that forms a resonator with the ground plane. This circuit element has 120° symmetry, may be circular or triangular, and may have cuts and shapes to adjust its RF properties. Three transmission lines match and connect the circuit to the three input/output connectors.
Circulator: An RF device with three ports that allows the input signal to be directed with low loss to a second port, with none coming out of the third port. The device is symmetrical, and any port may be selected for the input port. Circulators are made in coaxial, waveguide, drop-in, and surface mount configurations.
Coaxial: A transmission line in which the ground conductor surrounds the center conductor, the two being coaxial and separated by a continuous dielectric such as air or PTFE.
Connector: Coax units are equipped with SMA or N-Type connectors (other types can be fitted by request).
Contact Resistance: The electrical resistance across closed contacts as measured at their associated external terminals.
Coupling: Is a measure of the radio, in dB, of the input power of a coupler to power picked up by the coupler port.
Coupling Variation (dB): The Maximum peak-to-peak variation in coupling expected over the specified frequency range.
Cutoff Frequency: The upper frequency edge of the pass band of low pass filters.
CW (Continuous Wave): Signal of constant amplitude. In contrast, pulsed signals are discontinuous.
dB (Decibel): A comparison of two power levels equal to ten times the common logarithm of their ratio, or the ratio of two voltage levels equal to 20 times the common logarithm of their ratio.
dBc: The ratio in dB of a power level that is being compared to the power level of the reference carrier signal. Normally used for comparing noise and distortion products present on a carrier signal.
dBm: The number of decibels related to 1mW – the standard unit of power level used in the microwave industry. Example: 0 dbM = 1mw, +10dBm = 10mw, +20dBm = 100mw, etc.
DC Block: An in-line device primarily used in applications to block DC voltages in RF circuits without affecting the RF signal through the main transmission path. The three basic types are:
Directional Coupler: A passive device used for sampling incident and reflected microwave power conveniently and accurately with minimal disturbance to the transmitted signal. Some general applications for directional couplers include line monitoring, power measurement and load source isolators.
Directivity (dB): Directivity is a measure of how well a coupler isolates forward and reverse signals. An ideal coupler has only the forward signal coupled into the coupled port. Directivity is determined by taking the value of isolation and subtracting the specified coupling (including all variations).
DPDT (products/coaxial – switches): Double-Pole-Double-Throw switch. A switching with two inputs and two outputs, providing a ON – OFF switch function. Cab be thought of as two Singe Pole Single Throw (SPST) switches mechanically linked together.
Drop in: A component that does not require connectors, but has tabs that are typically soldered in place. The component housing may be bolted to the system ground plane.
Dual Directional Coupler: A passive 4 port device where the power enters through the main line from port 1 to port 2 and a fraction of the power is picked up by the coupled port, port 3. A small fraction is also picked up by port 4, in case of matched load, the smaller the amount of power picked up by port 4, is a measure of a good coupler directivity. If port 2 of the directional coupler is not terminated with the characteristic impedance of the coupler, mismatch load condition, some power will be reflected back to port 1, and is picked up by isolated port, por 1.
Duty Cycle: The ratio representing the length of time RF power will pass through the switch and the length of time between RF on and off cycles. Usually represented as the percentage of time at full RF power.
EMI (Electromagnetic Interference): Unintentional interfering signals generated within or external to electronic equipment. Typical sources could be power line transients and electromechanical switching equipment.
Energization: The application of power to an actuator coil winding of an electromechanical switch or relay. Use of this word assumes enough power to operate the relay, unless otherwise stated.
Failsafe: A switch with an actuator that contains a spring return mechanism to provide RF connection to one selected output when no voltage is supplied to the actuating terminals. Failsafe switches require continuously applied actuator voltage to maintain RF connection at any other position.
Ferrite: The ferrite material is the key component of a circulator. It is a ceramic material that interacts with the applied RF field depending on the level of stationary magnetic field across it. As part of a resonator formed by the circuit, the RF fields form standing waves, whose pattern allows energy to flow from the input port to just one of the other two ports.
Frequency Range (MHz): The minimum and maximum frequencies between which the specified component will meet all guaranteed specifications.
Frequency Sensitivity: The maximum peak-to-peak variation in coupling (in dB) of a directional or hybrid coupler over the specified frequency range. Also referred to as “flatness”.
Gain: Gain is the ratio of the output to the input power of the amplifier in dB. Gain = 20*log(S21)
GHz (Gigahertz): A unit of frequency measure equal to 1000 MHz (Megahertz) or a billion hertz.
Ground Station: As an operating environment for RF switch equipment, a ground station is an indoor, stationary installation where reliability and bandwidth are higher priorities than size or weight.
High Pass Filter: A filter which passes high frequencies and rejects low frequencies.
Hybrid Coupler: A passive four-port device that is used either to equally split an input signal with a resultant 90° phase shift between output signals or to combine two signals while maintaining high isolation between the ports.
IMD: Intermodulation Distortion is the result of two or more RF signals interacting in a non-linear medium. Power amplifiers produce IMD products at high power levels when amplification begins to saturate and the gain is no longer linear. Ferrite devices produce IMD since ferrite materials are inherently non-linear. Dissimilar metal junctions also cause IMD products, but usually at a very low level. Normally, only third order products are significant. These have frequencies given by 2F1-F2 and 2F2-F1, where F1 and F2 are the input frequencies.
Impedance (Ohms): Resistance to alternating current. Most RF and microwave systems are designed to operate with a characteristic impedance of 50 ohms or 75 Ohms.
Input VSWR: A measurement of the signal reflected from the input port over the specified frequency range with all other ports terminated in 50-ohm loads.
Insertion Loss: The transmission loss from input to output, measured in dB. Typically quoted as the highest loss over the passband.
Iridite (14-2): A chemical film (typically clear or yellow in color) which provides a barrier medium to prevent corrosion on aluminum surfaces and enhance adhesion of subsequent coatings such as paints and primers.
Isoadapter: An isolator that includes a coax to waveguide transition. The isolator is usually contained in the coax section. This device has the advantage of reducing VSWR between the transition and the isolator.
Isolation: A unit of measure (in dB) that compares the power level of a signal entering the output port with the level of that signal exiting the input port.
Isolator: An RF device that allows RF energy to flow with low loss in one direction, but presents high attenuation in the other direction. Typically, an isolator is made by terminating one port (3) of a circulator. Any power reflected back into the output port (2) is absorbed by the termination on port 3.
Latching: A switch with a self-cut off actuator that contains a mechanism, either electrical, mechanical, or magnetic, that will stop the chosen RF contact path once voltage is maintained on the control terminals after switching is accomplished.
Linear Phase Filter: A filter where the phase response versus frequency is a straight line. This filter displays a constant delay in its passband.
Low Pass Filter: A filter which passes low frequencies and rejects high frequencies.
Magnet: Powerful ceramic magnets provide the stationary field that causes the ferrite material to exhibit circulator properties. Typically, a magnet is placed on both sides of the ferrite components.
MHz (Megahertz): A unit of frequency measure equal to 1000 kHz (Kilohertz) or a million hertz.
Microstrip (Microstrip line): A transmission line consisting of a metalized strip and solid ground plane metallization separated by a thin, solid dielectric. Microstrip is a popular transmission medium above 400 MHz and below 6 GHz because it permits accurate fabrication of transmission lines on ceramic or PC board substrates. Higher frequencies or broadband devices tend to favor strip line technology.
Millimeter Wave Frequency Range: The frequency range where the electromagnetic wavelength is between approximately one centimeter and millimeter in length. Traditionally from approximately 30 GHz to 300 GHz.
MTBF (Mean Time Between Failure): The mean (average) time between failures of a component; it is often attributed to the “useful life” of the materials used to assemble the device. MTBF assumes that the component can be “renewed” or fixed after each failure and returned to service immediately after failure.
Non-Coherent Signals: The limiting factor for most Wilkinson power dividers used as combiners is power dissipation. When input signals are out of phase, non-coherent, or have amplitude unbalance, cancellation occurs across the isolation resistors resulting in power dissipation. Since these devices are most commonly used as dividers, typical industry designs utilize low power alumina surface mount resistor chips on a thermally insulating circuit board. However, maximum input for combining non-coherent signals on adjacent ports is: (Rated input power of divider * 5%) / “N” # of input channels. If the rated power is exceeded, the chip resistors will heat up and degrade resulting in loss of port-to-port isolation and VSWR.
Output VSWR: A measurement of the signal reflected from the output port over the specified frequency range with all other ports terminated in 50-ohm loads.
1-dB Compression Point: It is the amount of output power from an amplifier where in the output power verses input power filters linear gain curve, the gain is decreased by 1dB from the linear gain asymptote.
Passband: The frequency range of the passband of a filter.
Passivation: The formation of an insulating layer directly over a metal to protect the surface from contaminants, moisture, or particles.
Phase Balance: The maximum peak-to-peak phase difference (in degrees) between the output ports of a power divider over the specified frequency range.
Phase Velocity: This is the velocity at which the phase of any one frequency component of the wave travels.
PIM (Passive Intermodulation): Passive Intermodulation (PIM) occurs when two or more signals are present in a passive device (cable, connector, coupler, etc.) that exhibits a nonlinear response. The nonlinearity is typically caused by dissimilar metals or dirty/loose interconnects. Nonlinearity is typically not troublesome at low input signal levels, but if PIM is generated from a high-power transmitter path to an adjacent receiver channel, desensitization will occur. A common PIM specification is typically -110 dB or greater.
Pole Piece: Thin plates of steel that are used to help complete the magnetic circuit, maximizing the field in the ferrite material and reducing the stray field outside the device. Pole pieces are normally placed outside the magnets.
Power (Average) (W): Signals that are modulated or pulsed have instantaneous power levels that change over time. Averaging the power over time provides a measure of the energy that must be dissipated as heat, without causing degradation in performance.
Power (Peak): A pulsed signal is characterized by its instantaneous peak power, the length of each pulse, and the duty cycle or pulse repetition frequency.
Power Combiner: A passive RF/Microwave device that has multiple inputs and a single output. The input signals enter the input ports and are combined into a single output at the output port. Some signal loss occurs in the process due to the insertion loss of the combiner.
Power Divider: A passive RF/Microwave device that has a single input and multiple outputs. The input signal enters the input ports and is divided into equal signals at the multiple outport ports. Some signal loss occurs in the process due to the insertion loss of the divider. A power divider can be used a power combiner and vice versa, by reversing the input and output ports.
PTFE (PolyTetraFluoroEthylene): Used as an insulator in RF and microwave coaxial connectors because of its low & stable dielectric constant and low loss factor over a wide temperature and frequency range.
Radio Frequency, RF: It is the frequency range of electromagnetic wave transmission, this is normally considered between high HF frequency range, 30 MHz to 1 GHz. Above that range (1000 MHz) is considered Microwave Frequency.
Reactive Splitter: A broadband passive network that equally divides power applied to the input ports between any particular number of output ports without substantially affecting the phase relationship or causing distortion. Reactive splitters differ from Wilkinson power dividers as they provide no isolation between adjacent ports. Therefore, power entering any output of a reactive splitter will divide evenly between the adjacent and input ports.
Resonance, Above/Below: Ferrite devices that are designed with the magnetic bias field below the field level causing resonance, are said to operate “below resonance”. Similarly, if the bias field is high enough to exceed the resonant field, the device is operating in the “above resonance” mode.
Resonance, Ferrimagnetic: When a magnetic bias field is present with an RF field in a ferrimagnetic material, electrons precis about the axis of the bias field. With sufficient magnetic bias field, the electrons align with the bias field, and exhibit a resonant frequency in the microwave spectrum. This causes considerable loss to an incident RF signal having this resonant frequency. The RF frequency ω0, (ω0 = 2πFo) at which resonance occurs, depends on the magnetic bias field H, according to the relationship Fo= γH, where γ has the value 2.80 MHz/Oersted.
Return Loss: When expressed in dB, return loss is the ratio of reflected power to incident power. It is a measure of the amount of reflected power in a transmission line when it is terminated or connected to any passive or active device. Once it is measured, it can be converted by equations to reflection coefficient or to VSWR.
RF Couplers: RF/Microwave Couplers are passive devices that are used to sample high frequency signals. It takes one single as the input and provides two outputs- One being the direct output and the other being the coupled output. Based on the application requirement, the power level of the coupled signal can be varied when designing the device. Couplers have many applications and are used for sampling signals. They are used in signal generator and power amplifier feedback loops to control gain, measure incident or reflective power and to determine VSWR. Couplers are also used for unequal power splitting. The devices have many other applications.
RFI: Radio Frequency Interference. In order to minimize radiated emissions of RF energy, the seams of coaxial devices can be sealed with conductive sealant.
RF Leakage: The amount of RF energy which “leaks” or radiates from a connector and/or device. Typically tested at one frequency and expressed in dB. Large negative values indicate that the device does not radiate much energy.
Ripple: Generally referring to wavelike variations in the amplitude response of a filter. Chebyshev and elliptic function filters ideally have equi-ripple characteristics, which means that the difference in peaks and valleys of the amplitude response in the passband are always the same.
RoHS: (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Directive adopted by the European Union in February 2003 with the specified limits for the following elements in the manufacture of various types of electronic and electrical equipment:
Stop Band: The area of frequency where it is desirable to reject or attenuate all signals as much as possible.
Strip line:
A transmission line consisting of a conductor between extended conducting surfaces. Higher frequencies or broadband devices tend to favor strip line technology.
Surface Mount: Surface mount components are soldered directly to circuit traces. Solder pads on the component may be under the component.
3-dB Compression Point: It is amount of output power from the amplifier where in the Pin verses Pout linear gain curve, the linear gain asymptote is deceased by 3 dB.
3-dB Hybrid Coupler: It is a passive four-port device that is used either to equally split an input signal with a resultant 90* phase shift between outputs or to combine two 90* degree out of phase signals in-phase while maintaining high isolation between them.
Temperature (operating): The minimum and maximum ambient temperatures a given component can operate at and still meet all guaranteed specifications unless otherwise noted.
Temperature Compensation: Ferrite and magnet materials are selected to minimize variations of circulator properties with temperature. Where excessive variation occurs, inserts of temperature compensation steel are used to reduce the variation. These steels show considerable reduction in permeability with temperature and compensate for varying magnetic field in the ferrite material.
Termination: A load at the end of a transmission line, which matches the transmission line impedance, normally 50 Ohms in coax. A termination must be able to handle all the power transmitted through the transmission line.
Time Delay: Is the delay between the time the signal enters the input port and exists the output port of a filter, or other microwave components.
Torque: Recommended mating torque for industry standard connectors:
Transmission Line: The conducting components between circuit elements (such as amplifiers and isolators) which carry signal power. Wire, coaxial cable, microstrip, strip line, and waveguide are common examples.
Uni Directional Coupler: A passive 3 port device where the power enters through the mainline from port 1 to port 2 and a fraction of this power is picked up by the coupled port, port 3.
VSWR (Voltage Standing Wave Ratio): The ratio of the incident signal voltage compared to the reflected signal voltage in a transmission line. VSWR cannot be directly measured, so a return loss measurement (expressed in dB) is taken of reflected power to incident power. Once it is measured, it can be converted by equations to reflection coefficient or to VSWR.
Waveguide: A metal tube (normally rectangular) which passes RF energy with extremely low loss. The waveguide cross section determines the operating frequency range, which is about 20% of the nominal center frequency. Waveguide circulators are made with a Y geometry, in which the ferrite is placed close to the center of the Y. Waveguide flanges are used to connect the device to other components.
Wilkinson Power Divider: A passive device that equally splits an input signal to each output port or combines input signals to a common output port. Wilkinson power dividers differ from reactive splitters because the output ports are isolated Signals entering one of the output ports will not interfere with signals on the adjacent port. The limiting factor for Wilkinson power dividers used as combiners is power dissipation. When input signals are out of phase, non-coherent, or have amplitude unbalance, cancellation occurs across the isolation resistors resulting in power dissipation.
Wrap: Thin plates that are wrapped around coax and waveguide circulators (typically around 3 sides) to complete the magnetic circuit, maximizing the field in the ferrite material, and reducing the stray magnetic field outside the device.
4 Ms: Man/woman, machine, material, and method.
Activity-Based Costing (ABC: An accounting technique that enables an organization to determine the actual cost of a product or service by tracing the cost back to the specific activities that produce or provide it.
Affinity diagram : A tool for gathering and grouping ideas; one of the new seven quality tools; used in hoshin planning.
Andon: A visual management tool that highlights the status of a process in an area at a single glance whenever an abnormality occurs.
Autonomous Maintenance: A program in which equipment operators share responsibility with maintenance staff for the care of the equipment they use.
Balanced Scorecard (the): The balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1992) tracks business organizational functions in the areas of financial, customer, and internal business process, and learning and growth. In this system, an organization’s vision and strategy lead to the cascading of objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives throughout the organization. This book describes issues with this system and an alternative IEE system that overcomes these shortcomings.
Baseline: Beginning information from which a response change is assessed.
Batch Processing: The movement of products through the manufacturing process in large numbers of identical units at once. Entire batches, or lots, are sent to each operation in the production process at the same time. Also known as large-lot processing.
Benchmark: A standard in judging quality, value, or other important characteristics.
Business Process Improvement Event (BPIE) System: A system for identifying and timely resolving reoccurring problems. The resolution for these issues could lead to a simple agree-to procedure change, a DMADV design project, or P-DMAIC process improvement project.
Capability/Performance Metric: See Process capability/performance metric.
Capacity: The ability of a machine and its operator to complete the work required.
Cause-and-Effect Diagram (C&E Diagram): Also called the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, the C&E Diagram is a graphical brainstorming tool used to organize possible causes (KPIVs) of a symptom into categories of causes (problem solve). Standard categories are considered to be materials, equipment, methods, personnel, measurement, and environment. These are branched as required to additional levels. It is a tool used for gathering Wisdom of the Organization.
Cause-and-Effect Matrix: A tool used to help quantify team consensus on relationships thought to exist between key input and key output variables. The results lead to other activities such as FMEA, multi-vari charts, ANOVA, regression analysis, and DOE.
Cell: The location of processing steps for a product collocated next to other steps so that parts, documents, etc., can be processed in a continuous flow process.
Champions: Executive level managers who are responsible for managing and guiding the Lean Six Sigma or IEE deployment and its projects.
Changeover – Intellectual: The process from switching from one office task or process to another or from one design process to another – mental preparation to perform a new or different task or to change from one task to another.
Changeover – Machine: A process of switching from the production of one product or part number to another. Changeover time is measured as the time elapsed between the last piece in the run just completed and the first good piece from the process after the changeover.
Collins’s Three Circles
Constraining Operation: The manufacturing step that determines the upper limit on the number of finished parts that can be produced within a value stream. Also known as a bottleneck operation.
Continuous flow: In its purest form continuous flow means that items are processed and moved directly to the next process one piece at a time. Each processing step complete its work just before the next process needs the item, and the transfer batch size is one. Also known as one-piece flow and “make one, move one.”
Control Chart: A procedure used to track a process over time for the purpose of determining whether data are common or special cause.
Core Processes: The essential activities an organization must perform to produce products, complete order fulfillment functions, maintain its assets, and complete all supporting business functions.
Corrective Action: Process of resolving problems.
Cost of Doing Nothing Differently (CODND): COPQ within Six Sigma includes not doing what is right the first time, which can encompass issues such as scrap, reworks, and meeting with no purpose. To keep IEE from appearing as a quality initiative, I prefer to reference this metric as the cost of doing nothing differently (CODND), which has even broader costing implications than COPQ. In this book, I make reference to the CODND.
Cost of Non-Conformance (CONC): The cost of waste, caused by things like rejects, engineering change orders, excess or obsolete parts and warranty repair – a tool for converting waste into dollars.
Cost of Poor Quality: Traditionally, cost of quality issues have been given the broad categories of internal failure costs, external failure costs, appraisal costs, and prevention costs.
Cross-Dock: A mapping icon used to indicate the movement of materials from in-bound trucks to shipping lanes for out-bound trucks by-passing warehousing.
Cross Training: The capability to perform another team members tasks, responsibilities in their absence.
Current State: Capturing the “as-is” of a process or task. This is the first step to Value Stream Mapping the current state.
Customer: Someone for who work or a service is performed. The end user of a product is a customer of the employees within a company that manufactures the product. There are also internal customers in a company. When an employee does work or performs a service for someone else in the company, the person who receives this work is a customer of this employee.
Customer Value: An aspect of a product or service for which a customer is willing to pay.
Cycle Time: The time when work was started on an operation/work segment until the operation/work segment is complete. Cycle time is a subject of production lead-time. If the cycle time for each operation or work segment can equal taxt time, products can be made in single piece flow.
Dashboard: See Scorecard.
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): In general, the average number of days it takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made. In the example in the text, it is the average number of days before or after the due date that a payment is received.
Defect: A part, product, or service that does not conform to specifications or a customer’s expectations. Defects are caused by errors.
Defective: A nonconforming item that contains at least one defect or having a combination of several imperfections, causing the unit not to satisfy intended requirements.
Demand-Supply Chain: All the parts, materials, and services supplied by outside sources that are necessary to produce a product or service.
Deming, Dr. W. Edwards: As an American statistician, Dr. Deming is known for his top management teachings in Japan after World War II. Dr. Deming made a significant contribution to Japan becoming renown for its high-quality, innovative products.
Design for Manufacturability: (also sometime known as design for manufacturing) – (DFM) is the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture.
Deshi: Student.
Design-to-Cost: Design to cost simply means designing a product from scratch to meet the “largest cost” or the market price which customers are willing to pay, for a particular (or specified) level of functionality and quality, while returning a profit to the enterprise.
DOE (Design of Experiments): Experiment methodology in which factor levels are assessed in a fractional factorial experiment or in a full factorial experiment structure.
Do-Its: The simplest for of action (usually within 48 hours) and is a result of an issue discovered in an RPI or Value Stream. It is not another event; rather it is an issue or item that needs immediate attention.
Dojo: Training hall.
Drill-Down: A transition from general category information to more specific details by moving through a hierarchy.
DTD (Dock-to-Dock): A metric that measures how long it takes raw materials or sub-components coming into a plant to be turned into finished products.
Dwell Time: The period during which a dynamic process remains halted in order that another process may occur.
Earnings Per Share (EPS): Earnings power for each share of ownership. EPS goes up when earnings to up. It also goes up if the number of shares held by our shareowners goes down, thus making the earnings power per share higher.
Electronic Date Interchange, EDI: Electronic commerce is the exchange of information within or between enterprises for daily business activities. Also, the paperless (electronic) exchange of trading documents, such as purchase orders, shipment authorization, advanced shipment notices, and invoices, using standardized document formats.
End-of-the-Line Inspection: An inspection or check done at the end of a process.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The integration of all an organization’s departments and functions onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments’ needs.
Error: Any deviation from a specified manufacturing or business process. Errors cause defects in products or services.
Error-Proofing Devices: Mechanical, electrical, or pneumatic devices that signal existing errors or prevent potential ones.
Expedited Transport: To go around or by-pass normal operations to elevate priority of a task or product.
External Processes: Activities that an equipment operator can perform while the production line is still running.
Fail-Safing: A process, procedure or device within an organization that prevents a defect due to failure or malfunction.
FIFO (First-In, First-Out): A production method in which the oldest remaining items in a batch are the first to move forward in the production process.
Finished Goods: Manufactured product ready for sale – often referred to as finished good inventory.
Firefighting: The practice of giving focus to fixing the problems of the day or week. The usual corrective actions taken in firefighting, such as tweaking a stable process, do not create any long term fixes and may actually cause process degradation.
First In, First Out (FIFO): The first part to enter a process or storage location is also the first part to exit.
Fishbone diagram:: A problem-solving and brainstorming tool; also known as a Cause and Effect diagram; one of the Seven Quality Tools.
5S’s (Sort, Shine, Set in Order, Standardize, and Sustain): A method of creating a clean and orderly workplace that exposes waste and errors.
5S’s in Japanese: Seiri (put things in order), Seiton (proper arrangement), Seiso (clean), Seiketsu (purity), and Shitsuke (commitment).
Five Why Analysis: A problem-solving technique that entails continually asking why until the root cause is found.
Fixed Costs: Costs that aren’t changed by production or service/sales levels, such as rent, property tax, insurance, and interest expenses. They are the costs of being in business.
Flow: The progressive achievement of tasks along the value stream so that a product proceeds from design to launch, order to delivery, and raw materials into the hands of the customer with no stoppages, scrap, or backflow.
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis): A proactive method of improving reliability and minimizing failures in a product or service. It is an analytical approach to preventing problems in processes. For a process FMEA, Wisdom of Organization is used to list what can go wrong at each step of a process that could cause potential failures or customer problems. Each item is evaluated for its importance, frequency of occurrence, and probability of detecting its occurrence. This information is used to prioritize the items that most need improving. These are then assigned to a corrective action plan to reduce their risk.
Free Cash Flow: Cash that remains after we have subtracted all the costs of making and selling our products. It represents the amount of cash available for shareowners (dividends) and investments.
FTT (First Time Through): A metric that measures the percentage of units or aspects of a service that are completed without error the first time they go through your work processes.
Future State: Representation or vision of a process in a ?to be? scenario, eliminating waste that is currently in the process – this is the second step in Value Stream Mapping.
Gantt Chart: A bar chart that shows activities as blocks over time. A block’s beginning and end correspond to the beginning and end date of the activity.
Gemba: The real place or the specific place. Usually means the shop floor and other areas where work is done.
Genchi genbutsu: Go see; go to the real place and see what is actually happening.
Green Belts (GBs): Part-time practitioners who typically receive two weeks of training over two months. Their primary focus is on projects that are in their functional area. The inference that someone becomes a green belt before a black belt should not be made. Business and personal needs/requirements should influence the decision whether someone becomes a black belt or green belt. If someone’s job requires a more in-depth skill set, such as the use of Design of Experiments, then the person should be trained as a black belt. Also, at deployment initiation black belt training should be conducted first so that this additional skill set can be used when coaching others.
GTS: Grasp the situation; the heart of PDCA.
Hansei: Reflection; part of both hoshin planning and problem solving.
Heijunka: Production leveling.
Histogram: A graphical representation of the sample frequency distribution that describes the occurrence of grouped items.
Hoshin: A statement of objectives, goals, direction, and/or policy.
Hoshin Kanri: Japanese name for policy deployment. Used by some Lean companies to guide their operational strategy.
Hoshin planning: See Hoshin kanri.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement, which has a possible explanation to some event or phenomenon. Hypotheses are not a theoretical statement. Instead, hypotheses are to have a testable statement, which might include a prediction.
Ideal-State Map: Part of the value stream process to develop a process with out limitations or starting from scratch on demand, one by one, defect free, low cost, capable and committed work force.
In Control: The description of a process where variation is consistent over time; that is, only common causes exist. The process is predictable.
Individuals Control Chart: A control chart of individual values where between-subgroup variability affects the calculated upper and lower control limits; i.e., the width between the upper and lower control limits increases when there is more between subgroup variability. When plotted individuals chart data is within the upper and lower control limits and there are no patterns, the process is said to be stable and typically referenced as an in control process. In IEE, this common-cause state is referenced as a predictable process. Control limits are independent of specification limits or targets.
Information Flow: The information necessary to complete any process. The movement of information on customer desires backward from the customer to the points where the information is needed to direct each operation. The flow of information tells each process what to make or do next. The information flow is treated with as much importance as the material flow.
Information Technology: Computer systems and applications, which involves development, installation, and/or implementation.
Integrated Enterprise (process) Excellence (IEE, I double E): A roadmap for the creation of an enterprise process system in which organizations can significantly improve both customer satisfaction and their bottom line. The techniques help manufacturing, development, and service organizations become more competitive and/or move them to new heights. IEE is a structured approach that guides organizations through the tracking and attainment of organizational goals. IEE goes well beyond traditional Lean Six Sigma and the balanced scorecard methods. IEE integrates enterprise process measures and improvement methodologies with tool such as Lean and Theory of Constraints (TOC) in a never-ending pursuit of excellence. IEE becomes an enabling framework, which integrates, improves, and aligns with other initiatives such as Total Quality Management (TQM), ISO 9000, Malcolm Baldrige Assessments, and the Shingo Prize. IEE is the organizational orchestration that moves toward the achievement goal of the three Rs of Business: i.e., everyone is doing the Right things and doing them Right at the Right time.
ISO 9000: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) series of developed and published standards. The intent of these standards is to define, establish, and maintain an effective quality assurance system in both manufacturing and service industries.
IT: See Information Technology
Jidoka: Automation with a human mind. Jidoka means developing processes with both high capability (few defects made) and containment (defects contained in the zone).
Jim Collins’s Three Circles: See Collins’s three circles.
Jishuken: Voluntary study groups; e.g., association suppliers might join to share experiences and thus deepen their understanding of critical concepts.
Just-In-Time Inventory (JIT): A method of inventory management in which small shipments of stock are delivered as soon as they are needed. JIT minimizes stocking levels.
Kaizen Event or Blitz: An intense short-term project that gives focus to improve a process. Substantial resources are committed during this event; for example, Operators, Engineering, Maintenance, and others are available for immediate action. A facilitator directs the event, which usually includes training followed by analysis, design, and area rearrangement.
Kanban: Pulling a product through the production process. This method of manufacturing process-flow-control only allows movement of material by pulling from a preceding process. Inventory is kept low. When quality errors are detected, less production is affected.
LAI (Lean Aerospace Initiative): A consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on understanding and applying lean and deploying knowledge around lean principles and practices in industry. Visit them on the Web at http://lean.mit.edu/.
Law of Physics: A physical law, or a law of nature, that is considered true.
Lead Time: From a customer standpoint it is the total time a customer must wait to receive a product after placing an order. Production and Procurement cycle time are subsets of lead-time.
Lean: Improving operations and the supply chain with an emphasis on the reduction of wasteful activities like waiting, transportation, material hand-offs, inventory, and overproduction.
Lean Supply Chain: A lean supply chain defines how a well-designed supply chain should operate, delivering products quickly to the end customer, with minimum waste.
Level Five System: Jim Collins (2001) describes in Good to Great as a level five leader as someone who is not only great when they are leading an organization but who enables the organization to remain great after they leave it. I describe the level-five-leader-created legacy as being a Level Five System.
Life Cycle Value Stream Management (LCVSM): A business model utilizing customer-focused value streams with clear accountability and integrated support structures to maximize customer and shareowner value. It incorporates a process for increasing the ration of value to non-value in the overall life cycle of customer deliverable products, systems, or services, and for ensuring the value stream meets or exceeds customer requirements. LCVS leasers are the people responsible for leading the LCVS processes and LCVS teams.
Machine with a Brain or Machine Vision (MV): (MV) is the application of computer vision to industry and manufacturing. It is a subfield of engineering that encompasses computer science, optics, mechanical engineering, and industrial automation.
Malcolm Baldrige Award: An award that recognizes yearly up to five companies that demonstrate outstanding quality management systems. The award, started in 1986, would later be known as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act which was created under the direction of ASQ and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Act established a national award that recognizes total quality management in American industry.
Management by objectives (MBO): The precursor to hoshin planning; introduced by Peter Drucker in his 1954 book, The Practice of Management.
Manufacturing Cycle Time: Amount of time that elapses between the times the production process begins on a product until it is completed.
Market Share: Our portion of the market in which we do business.
Master Black Belts (MBBs): Black belts who have undertaken two weeks of advanced training and have a proven track record of delivering results through various projects and project teams. They should be a dedicated resource to the deployment. Before they train, master black belts need to be certified in the material that they are to deliver. Their responsibilities include coaching black belts, monitoring team progress, and assisting teams when needed.
Material Flow: The movement of physical items through the entire value stream.
Material Flow Time: Inventory that is partially built, but not yet completed. Production work-in-process is used to measure material flow time.
Material Handling: The process of moving material from a warehouse or staging to the point of use – often at an operator’s workstation.
Mean: Sum of all responses divided by the sample size.
Median: For a sample, the number that is in the middle when all observations are ranked in magnitude. For a population, the value at which the cumulative distribution is 0.5.
Mental model: One’s assumptions about how the world works, based on experience, temperament, and upbringing; the invisible glasses that filter our experience and determine what we see.
Milk Run: Routing a delivery vehicle in a way that allows it to make pick-ups or drop-offs at multiple locations on a single travel loop – as opposed to making several trips to each location.
Mixed Model Production/Scheduling (Every Product Every Interval – EPEI): Producing several different parts or products in varying sizes within a work cell so that production is in sync with customer demand.
Mixed Model Work Cell: Capability to produce a variety of items that differ in labor and material content, on the same production line; allows for efficient utilization of resources while providing rapid response to customer demands.
Monument: The process step that determine the upper limit on the number of finished items that can be produced with a value stream – also know as bottleneck.
Move Time: The time that a job spends in transit from one operation to another. Move time is a subset of cycle time.
Muda: A Japanese term indicating efforts that do not add value (waste). Some categories of muda are defects, over production or excess inventory, idle time, and poor layout.
Multiple Cycles: Products that go through a cell more than once in order to be completed. Typically used to provide greater flow visibility for products having a low build rate.
Multi-Tasking : The ability to perform more than one task or series of task in tandem.
Multi-Vari Chart: A chart that displays the variance within units, between units, between samples, and between lots. It is useful in detecting variation sources within a process.
Mura: Unevenness.
Muri: Strain, either physical or mental; overburden.
Nemawashi: Literally means “to prepare a tree for transplanting,” refers to the formal and informal method of gaining consensus prior to the implementation of a hoshin or plan.
New Seven: Problem-solving tools developed in Japan and North America in the 1970s. They include the affinity diagram, fault tree, Process Decision Program Charts (PDPC), matrix, tree diagram, interrelationship digraph, and Gantt chart.
Nonconformance: Failure to meet specification requirement.
Non-value Added: Any product, process, or service that does not add value to the ultimate customer.
On-Time Delivery: Percentage of product delivered to out customer that is on schedule according to our contracts.
One-Piece Flow: The movement of products through the manufacturing process one unit at a time. Compare to batch processing.
Out of Control: Control charts exhibit special causes conditions. The process is not predictable.
Out of Cycle Work: Tasks of an operator in a multi-operator process which require the operator to break the flow or leave the cell area (i.e. retrieve parts, getting paperwork, etc.)
Pareto Chart: A graphical technique used to quantify problems so that effort can be expended in fixing the “vital few” causes, as opposed to the “trivial many.” Named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist.
PDCA: The plan, do, check, act cycle developed by Walter Shewhart in the 1930s and refined by W. Edwards Deming.
Pitch: The available time of work week divided by the total number of units scheduled for the work cell. Pitch is used as a heart beat of the work cell – known as a takt time for mixed model scheduling.
Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA): An improvement cycle based on the scientific method of proposing a change in a process, implementing the change, measuring the results, and taking appropriate action. The PDCA cycle has four stages:
Point of Use Stock: Storing inventory as close as possible to the process that requires them.
Poka-Yoke: A Japanese term indicating a mechanism that either prevents a mistake from occurring or makes a mistake obvious at a glance.
Policy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri): A management process that aligns – both vertically and horizontally – a firm’s functions and activities with its strategic objective. A specific plan is developed with precise goals, actions, milestones, responsibilities, and measures.
Population: Statistically a population is a group of data from a single distribution. In a practical sense, a population could also be considered to be a segment or a group of data from a single source or category. In the process of explaining tools and techniques, multiple populations may be discussed as originating from different sources, locations, or machines.
PPM (Parts per Million): An attribute measurement of defect rate, expressed in defects found divided by one million. Percent defects were once the standard. Note that a percentage-unit-improvement in parts-per-million (ppm) defect rate does not equate to the same percentage improvement in the sigma quality level.
Predictable Process: A stable, controlled process where variation in outputs is only caused by natural or random variation in the inputs or in the process itself.
Preventive Action: An action that is taken to eliminate from reoccurrence a potential nonconformity cause or other undesirable situation.
Probability Plot: Data are plotted on a selected probability paper coordinate system to determine if a particular distribution is appropriate (i.e., the data plot as a straight line) and to make statements about percentiles of the population. The plot can be used to make prediction statements about stable processes. Breyfogle (2008c) describes the creation of this plot.
Process: A series of steps or actions that must occur in a specific sequence to create a design or produces a completed order or product.
Process Capability/Performance Metric: IEE uses the term process capability/performance metric to describe a process’s predictive output in terms that everyone can understand. The process to determine this metric is:
Process Capacity Table: A tool for gathering information about the sequence of operations that make up a work process and the time required to complete each operation.
Process Delay: The time that batches or lots must wait until the next process begins.
Process Flow Diagram (Chart): Path of steps of work used to produce or do something.
Procurement Lead Time: The time required to obtain all necessary materials. Lead-time begins when a decision has been made to accept a new order to produce a new product and ends when production commences.
Product Development Cycle Time: Amount of time that elapses between the authorization to proceed in the design of a product (Decision Point D) and the introduction of the product into the factory (Decision Point E).
Productivity: The ratio of output to input. It provides information about the efficiency of your core processes.
Progressive Work Cell: Product manufactured in a sequential continuous flow incorporating Successive Checks and Takt Time; work is broken down by segments of time rather than by pieces of material.
Pull: A Lean term that results in an activity when a customer or down-stream process step requests the activity. A homebuilder that builds houses only when an agreement is reached on the sale of the house is using a pull system.
Pull System: A production system in which goods are built only when requested by a downstream process. A customer’s order “pulls” a product from the production system. Nothing is produced until it is needed or wanted downstream.
Purchasing Flow Time (PFT): The average number of weeks of active production stock we have in inventory for future production needs. A production stock week is currently used to measure purchasing flow time.
Push: A Lean term that results in an activity that a customer or down-stream process step has not specifically requested. This activity can create excessive waste and/or inventory. A home-builder that builds the houses on the speculation of sale is using a push system. If the house does not sell promptly upon completion, the homebuilder has created excess inventory for his company, which can be very costly.
Push System: A production system in which goods are produced and handed off to a downstream process, where they are stored until needed. This type of system creates excess inventory.
Quality Function Deployment: A structured process that provides a means to identify and carry customer requirements through each stage of product and service development and implementation. Quality responsibilities are effectively deployed to any needed activity within a company to ensure that appropriate quality is achieved.
Queue Time: The amount of time a job waits at a work center before setup or value added work is performed on the job. Queue time is a subset of production lead-time.
Quick Changeover: A method of analyzing your organization’s manufacturing processes and then reducing the materials, skilled resources, and time needed for equipment setup, including the exchange of tools and dies. It allows your organization to implement small-batch production or one-piece flow in a cost-effective manner.
Radar Chart: A chart that is sometimes called a spider chart. The chart is a two-dimensional chart of three or more quantitative variables represented on axes from the same point.
Rapid Flow Cell: The overarching term that describes methods of production that implement Lean Principles to shorten product throughput time. These are alternatives to batch and push methods.
Red-Flag Condition: A situation in which the probability that errors will happen is high.
Return on Investment Capital (ROIC): Measures how well we use the money we invest in our business to generate a profit.
Right Sized Equipment: A design, production, or scheduling device that can be fitted directly into the flow of within a product family so that production no longer requires unnecessary transportation and waiting. Right sized equipment makes economical sense.
Root-Cause Analysis: A process of identifying problems in an organization, finding their causes, and creating the best solutions to keep them from happening again.
RPI: Radical Process Improvement: is a methodology that accelerates the continuous process improvement philosophy and generates dramatic results. The actual workshop phase focuses on a phase focuses on a cross-functional team on improving a process.
Rotation: A scheduled movement of operators from station to station.
Run time: The time a product is actually being worked on in design or production and the time an order is actually being processed. This is a subset of cycle time.
Sales/Employee: Amount of sales generated per employee.
Sales Growth : Year over year percentage change in sales.
Scorecard: A scorecard is to help manage an organization’s performance through the optimization and alignment of organizational units, business processes, and individuals. A scorecard can also provide goals and targets, which is to help individuals understand their organizational contribution. Scorecards span the operational, tactical and strategic business aspects and decisions. A dashboard is to display information so that an enterprise can be run effectively. A dashboard is to organize and present information in a format that is easy to read and interpret.
Self-Inspection: An inspection performed by the operator at his or her own workstation or area.
Sensei: The Japanese term for “teacher”.
Setup Time: The time required for a specific machine, resource, work center, or assembly line to convert from production of the last good piece of lot A to the first good piece of lot B. This is a subset of cycle time.
Set-Up Reduction: The process of reducing the amount of time needed to changeover a process from the last part from the previous product to the first good part for the next process.
Shadow Board: A visual control technique that uses an image of an object to show where it should be stored.
Shingo Prize: Established in 1988, the prize promotes awareness of Lean manufacturing concepts and recognizes United States, Canada, and Mexico companies that achieve world-class manufacturing status. The philosophy is that world-class business performance may be achieved through focused core manufacturing and business process improvements.
Sigma: The Greek letter (σ) that is often used to describe the standard deviation of data.
Sigma Quality Level: A metric calculated by some to describe the capability of a process relative to its specification. A six sigma quality level is said to have a 3.4 ppm rate.
Single Piece Flow: The progressive movement of a single assembly through the assembly process with no stoppage, scrap, or backflow. Making and moving one piece at a time.
Six Sigma: Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.
SMART: Simple, measurable, achievable, reasonable, and trackable. Refers to goals and targets.
The Seven Quality Tools: Problem solving tools developed in Japan and North America over the past century. They include the run chart, Pareto chart, histogram, control chart, checksheet, and scatter diagram.
Social Stream: Analysis of relationships, organizational, procedural and behavioral issues that impact the process or decision making. Often referred to as Social Stream Mapping.
Spaghetti Chart: Mapping physical movement of product as it passed thru the production or office process.
Stakeholders: Those people or organizations who are not directly involved with project work but are affected its success or can influence its results. They may be process owners, managers affected by the project, and people who work in the studied process. Stakeholders also include internal departments, which support the process, finance, suppliers, and customers.
Standard: The best way we know at this moment; standard in the lean system change as we discover better ways of working; a clear, simple image of what should be happening.
Standard Deviation (σ, s): A mathematical quantity that describes the variability of a response. It equals the square root of variance. The standard deviation of a sample (s) is used to estimate the standard deviation of a population (σ).
Standard Work: A documented process that establishes the most efficient way to perform a task that is observable and repeatable according to the Takt Time, Work Sequence, and Standard WIP of the product. Standard work yields certain measurable performance factors that are a base line for future reference.
Standard Work in Process (WIP): The minimum number of parts in a process that are required to make the process work.
Statistical Process Control (SPC): The application of statistical techniques in the control of processes. SPC is often considered to be a subset of SQC, where the emphasis in SPC is on the tools associated with the process but not on product acceptance techniques.
Statistical Quality Control (SQC): The application of statistical techniques in the control of quantity. SQC included the use of regression analysis, tests of significance, acceptance sampling, control charts, distributions, and so on.
Store: A controlled inventory of items that is used to schedule production at an upstream process. Usually located near the upstream process to make customer requirements visible. Also called a supermarket.
Strategy Deployment: see Hoshin Kanri.
Successive Checks: A verification of the previous stations work and communication and resolution of discrepancies if any are found.
Supermarket: A replenishment system that holds an amount of each product it produces in which each process simply produces what is withdrawn from its supermarket.
Takt Image: Creating an awareness of Takt time in areas where multiple cycles are used to build products and where flow is not readily visible.
Takt Time: The available production time divided by customer demand. Takt time sets the pace of production to match the rate of customer demand and becomes the drumbeat of any lean system. Takt time is calculated as follows: ))Available Production time in a day – lunch and breaks)/(Required production units in a day)).
Theory of Constraints (TOC): Constraints can be broadly classified as being internal resource, market or policy. The outputs of a system are a function of the whole system, not just individual processes. System performance is a function of how well constraints are identified and managed. When we view a system as a whole, we realize that the output is a function of the weakest link. The weakest link of the system is the constraint. If care is not exercised, we can be focusing on a subsystem that, even though improved, does not impact the overall system output. We need to focus on the orchestration of efforts so that we optimize the overall system, not individual pieces. Unfortunately, organization charts lead to workflow by function, which can result in competing forces within the organization. With TOC, systems are viewed as a whole and work activities are directed so that the whole system performance measures are improved.
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): A company wide preventative maintenance, improvement – related system to improve the efficiency and use of equipment.
Total Quality Management (TQM): A management program, which works on continuous product or service improvements through workforce involvement.
Turnover Rate (Voluntary): Voluntary separation divided by average full-time salaried head count for a rolling 12-month period.
Value Added: A capability (product or service) provided to the ultimate customer at a specific time, at a specific price, as defined by the customer.
Value Chain: Describes flowchart fashion both primary and support organizational activities and their accompanying 30,000-foot-level or satellite-level metrics. Example primary activity flow is developing product-market product-sell product-produce product-invoice/collect payments-report satellite-level metrics. Example support activities include IT, finance, HR, labor relations, safety and environment, and legal.
Value Stream: All of the actions and tasks, both value added and non-value added, required to bring an item (an idea, information, product or service) from its inception through delivery. These include actions to process information from the customer and actions to transform the product on its way to the customer.
Value Stream Map: A diagram, usually hand drawn that shows the series of steps required to bring a product of service to a customer; also known as material and information flow diagram.
Variable Costs: Costs that vary with production or service/sales levels, such as the costs of raw materials used in the manufacturing process.
Visual Factory: Management by sight. Visual factory involves the collection and display of real-time information to the entire workforce at all times. Work cell bulletin boards and other easily-seen media might report information about orders, production schedules, quality, delivery performance, and financial health of business.
Visual Management: At a glance, without discussion, it tells people working and supporting an operation the working status and health of a cells function or operation.
Voice of the Customer (VOC): The identification and prioritization of true customer needs and requirements, which can be accomplished through focus groups, interviews, data analyses, and other methods.
Voice of the Process (VOP): A quantification of what the process delivers. A voice of the process to voice of the customer needs assessment can identify process improvement focus areas; for example, a 30,000-foot-level assessment indicates an 11 percent delivery-time nonconformance rate.
Waste: Any activity that takes time, resources, or space, but does not add value to a product or service.
WIP: A general description for inventory that is being processed within an operation or is awaiting another operation.
Work Combination: A mixture of people, processes, materials, and technology that comes together to enable the completion of a work process.
Workflow: The steps and motions employees take to perform their work tasks.
Workflow Diagram: A graphic that shows your organization’s current equipment layout and the movement of materials and workers during work processes.
Work-in-process (WIP): Items between machines waiting to be processed.
Work Sequence: The sequential order in which tasks that make up a work process are performed.
Yokoten: Information sharing across the plant; sharing
Activity-Based Costing (ABC): An accounting technique that enables an organization to determine the actual cost of a product or service by tracing the cost back to the specific activities that produce or provide it.
Andon: A visual management tool that highlights the status of a process in an area at a single glance whenever an abnormality occurs.
Autonomous Maintenance: A program in which equipment operators share responsibility with maintenance staff for the care of the equipment they use.
Balanced Scorecard (the): The balanced scorecard (Kaplan and Norton, 1992) tracks business organizational functions in the areas of financial, customer, and internal business process, and learning and growth. In this system, an organization’s vision and strategy lead to the cascading of objectives, measures, targets, and initiatives throughout the organization. This book describes issues with this system and an alternative IEE system that overcomes these shortcomings.
Baseline: Beginning information from which a response change is assessed.
Batch Processing: The movement of products through the manufacturing process in large numbers of identical units at once. Entire batches, or lots, are sent to each operation in the production process at the same time. Also known as large-lot processing.
Benchmark: A standard in judging quality, value, or other important characteristics.
Business Process Improvement Event (BPIE) System: A system for identifying and timely resolving reoccurring problems. The resolution for these issues could lead to a simple agree-to procedure change, a DMADV design project, or P-DMAIC process improvement project.
Capability/Performance Metric: See Process capability/performance metric.
Capacity: The ability of a machine and its operator to complete the work required.
Cause-and-Effect Diagram (C&E Diagram): Also called the fishbone or Ishikawa diagram, the C&E Diagram is a graphical brainstorming tool used to organize possible causes (KPIVs) of a symptom into categories of causes (problem solve). Standard categories are considered to be materials, equipment, methods, personnel, measurement, and environment. These are branched as required to additional levels. It is a tool used for gathering Wisdom of the Organization.
Cause-and-Effect Matrix: A tool used to help quantify team consensus on relationships thought to exist between key input and key output variables. The results lead to other activities such as FMEA, multi-vari charts, ANOVA, regression analysis, and DOE.
Cell: The location of processing steps for a product collocated next to other steps so that parts, documents, etc., can be processed in a continuous flow process.
Champions: Executive level managers who are responsible for managing and guiding the Lean Six Sigma or IEE deployment and its projects.
Changeover – Intellectual: The process from switching from one office task or process to another or from one design process to another – mental preparation to perform a new or different task or to change from one task to another.
Changeover – Machine: A process of switching from the production of one product or part number to another. Changeover time is measured as the time elapsed between the last piece in the run just completed and the first good piece from the process after the changeover.
Collins’s Three Circles:
Constraining Operation: The manufacturing step that determines the upper limit on the number of finished parts that can be produced within a value stream. Also known as a bottleneck operation.
Control Chart: A procedure used to track a process over time for the purpose of determining whether data are common or special cause.
Core Processes: The essential activities an organization must perform to produce products, complete order fulfillment functions, maintain its assets, and complete all supporting business functions.
Corrective Action: Process of resolving problems.
Cost of Doing Nothing Differently (CODND): COPQ within Six Sigma includes not doing what is right the first time, which can encompass issues such as scrap, reworks, and meeting with no purpose. To keep IEE from appearing as a quality initiative, I prefer to reference this metric as the cost of doing nothing differently (CODND), which has even broader costing implications than COPQ. In this book, I make reference to the CODND.
Cost of Non-Conformance (CONC): The cost of waste, caused by things like rejects, engineering change orders, excess or obsolete parts and warranty repair – a tool for converting waste into dollars.
Cost of Poor Quality: Traditionally, cost of quality issues have been given the broad categories of internal failure costs, external failure costs, appraisal costs, and prevention costs.
Cross-Dock: A mapping icon used to indicate the movement of materials from in-bound trucks to shipping lanes for out-bound trucks by-passing warehousing.
Cross Training: The capability to perform another team members tasks, responsibilities in their absence.
Current State: Capturing the “as-is” of a process or task. This is the first step to Value Stream Mapping the current state.
Customer: Someone for who work or a service is performed. The end user of a product is a customer of the employees within a company that manufactures the product. There are also internal customers in a company. When an employee does work or performs a service for someone else in the company, the person who receives this work is a customer of this employee.
Customer Value: An aspect of a product or service for which a customer is willing to pay.
Cycle Time: The time when work was started on an operation/work segment until the operation/work segment is complete. Cycle time is a subject of production lead-time. If the cycle time for each operation or work segment can equal taxt time, products can be made in single piece flow.
Dashboard: See Scorecard.
Days Sales Outstanding (DSO): In general, the average number of days it takes to collect revenue after a sale has been made. In the example in the text, it is the average number of days before or after the due date that a payment is received.
Defect: A part, product, or service that does not conform to specifications or a customer’s expectations. Defects are caused by errors.
Defective: A nonconforming item that contains at least one defect or having a combination of several imperfections, causing the unit not to satisfy intended requirements.
Demand-Supply Chain: All the parts, materials, and services supplied by outside sources that are necessary to produce a product or service.
Deming, Dr. W. Edwards: As an American statistician, Dr. Deming is known for his top management teachings in Japan after World War II. Dr. Deming made a significant contribution to Japan becoming renowned for its high-quality, innovative products.
Design for Manufacturability: (also sometimes known as design for manufacturing) – (DFM) is the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture.
Design-to-Cost: Design to cost simply means designing a product from scratch to meet the “largest cost” or the market price which customers are willing to pay, for a particular (or specified) level of functionality and quality, while returning a profit to the enterprise.
DOE (Design of Experiments): Experiment methodology in which factor levels are assessed in a fractional factorial experiment or in a full factorial experiment structure.
Do-Its: The simplest for of action (usually within 48 hours) and is a result of an issue discovered in an RPI or Value Stream. It is not another event; rather it is an issue or item that needs immediate attention.
Drill-Down: A transition from general category information to more specific details by moving through a hierarchy.
DTD (Dock-to-Dock): A metric that measures how long it takes raw materials or sub-components coming into a plant to be turned into finished products.
Dwell Time: The period during which a dynamic process remains halted in order that another process may occur.
Earnings Per Share (EPS): Earnings power for each share of ownership. EPS goes up when earnings to up. It also goes up if the number of shares held by our shareowners goes down, thus making the earnings power per share higher.
Electronic Data Interchange, EDI: Electronic commerce is the exchange of information within or between enterprises for daily business activities. Also, the paperless (electronic) exchange of trading documents, such as purchase orders, shipment authorization, advanced shipment notices, and invoices, using standardized document formats.
End-of-the-Line Inspection: An inspection or check done at the end of a process.
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP): The integration of all an organization’s departments and functions onto a single computer system that can serve all those different departments’ needs.
Error: Any deviation from a specified manufacturing or business process. Errors cause defects in products or services.
Error-Proofing Devices: Mechanical, electrical, or pneumatic devices that signal existing errors or prevent potential ones.
Expedited Transport: To go around or by-pass normal operations to elevate the priority of a task or product.
External Processes: Activities that an equipment operator can perform while the production line is still running.
Fail-Safing: A process, procedure, or device within an organization that prevents a defect due to failure or malfunction.
FIFO (First-In, First-Out): A production method in which the oldest remaining items in a batch are the first to move forward in the production process.
Finished Goods: Manufactured product ready for sale – often referred to as finished goods inventory.
Firefighting: The practice of giving focus to fixing the problems of the day or week. The usual corrective actions taken in firefighting, such as tweaking a stable process, do not create any long term fixes and may actually cause process degradation.
First In, First Out (FIFO): The first part to enter a process or storage location is also the first part to exit.
5S’s (Sort, Shine, Set in Order, Standardize, and Sustain): A method of creating a clean and orderly workplace that exposes waste and errors.
5S’s in Japanese: Seiri (put things in order), Seiton (proper arrangement), Seiso (clean), Seiketsu (purity), and Shitsuke (commitment).
Fixed Costs: Costs that aren’t changed by production or service/sales levels, such as rent, property tax, insurance, and interest expenses. They are the costs of being in business.
Flow: The progressive achievement of tasks along the value stream so that a product proceeds from design to launch, order to delivery, and raw materials into the hands of the customer with no stoppages, scrap, or backflow.
FMEA (Failure Mode and Effect Analysis): A proactive method of improving reliability and minimizing failures in a product or service. It is an analytical approach to preventing problems in processes. For a process FMEA, Wisdom of Organization is used to list what can go wrong at each step of a process that could cause potential failures or customer problems. Each item is evaluated for its importance, frequency of occurrence, and probability of detecting its occurrence. This information is used to prioritize the items that most need improving. These are then assigned to a corrective action plan to reduce their risk.
Free Cash Flow: Cash that remains after we have subtracted all the costs of making and selling our products. It represents the amount of cash available for shareowners (dividends) and investments.
FTT (First Time Through): A metric that measures the percentage of units or aspects of a service that are completed without error the first time they go through your work processes.
Future State: Representation or vision of a process in a “to be” scenario, eliminating waste that is currently in the process – this is the second step in Value Stream Mapping.
Gantt Chart: A bar chart that shows activities as blocks over time. A block’s beginning and end correspond to the beginning and end date of the activity.
Green Belts (GBs): Part-time practitioners who typically receive two weeks of training over two months. Their primary focus is on projects that are in their functional area. The inference that someone becomes a green belt before a black belt should not be made. Business and personal needs/requirements should influence the decision whether someone becomes a black belt or green belt. If someone’s job requires a more in-depth skill set, such as the use of Design of Experiments, then the person should be trained as a black belt. Also, at deployment initiation, black belt training should be conducted first so that this additional skill set can be used when coaching others.
Histogram: A graphical representation of the sample frequency distribution that describes the occurrence of grouped items.
Hoshin Kanri: Japanese name for policy deployment. Used by some Lean companies to guide their operational strategy.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement, which has a possible explanation for some event or phenomenon. Hypotheses are not a theoretical statement. Instead, hypotheses are to have a testable statement, which might include a prediction.
Ideal-State Map: Part of the value stream process to develop a process without limitations or starting from scratch on demand, one by one, defect free, low cost, capable, and committed workforce.
In Control: The description of a process where variation is consistent over time; that is, only common causes exist. The process is predictable.
Individuals Control Chart: A control chart of individual values where between-subgroup variability affects the calculated upper and lower control limits; i.e., the width between the upper and lower control limits increases when there is more between subgroup variability. When plotted individuals chart data is within the upper and lower control limits and there are no patterns, the process is said to be stable and typically referenced as an in control process. In IEE, this common-cause state is referenced as a predictable process. Control limits are independent of specification limits or targets.
Information Flow: The information necessary to complete any process. The movement of information on customer desires backward from the customer to the points where the information is needed to direct each operation. The flow of information tells each process what to make or do next. The information flow is treated with as much importance as the material flow.
Information Technology: Computer systems and applications, which involve development, installation, and/or implementation.
Integrated Enterprise (process) Excellence (IEE, I double E): A roadmap for the creation of an enterprise process system in which organizations can significantly improve both customer satisfaction and their bottom line. The techniques help manufacturing, development, and service organizations become more competitive and/or move them to new heights. IEE is a structured approach that guides organizations through the tracking and attainment of organizational goals. IEE goes well beyond traditional Lean Six Sigma and the balanced scorecard methods. IEE integrates enterprise process measures and improvement methodologies with tool such as Lean and Theory of Constraints (TOC) in a never-ending pursuit of excellence. IEE becomes an enabling framework, which integrates, improves, and aligns with other initiatives such as Total Quality Management (TQM), ISO 9000, Malcolm Baldrige Assessments, and the Shingo Prize. IEE is the organizational orchestration that moves toward the achievement goal of the three Rs of Business: i.e., everyone is doing the Right things and doing them Right at the Right time.
ISO 9000: The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) series of developed and published standards. The intent of these standards is to define, establish, and maintain an effective quality assurance system in both manufacturing and service industries.
IT: See Information Technology
Jim Collins’s Three Circles: See Collins’s three circles.
Just-In-Time Inventory (JIT): A method of inventory management in which small shipments of stock are delivered as soon as they are needed. JIT minimizes stocking levels.
Kaizen Event or Blitz: An intense short-term project that gives focus to improve a process. Substantial resources are committed during this event; for example, Operators, Engineering, Maintenance, and others are available for immediate action. A facilitator directs the event, which usually includes training followed by analysis, design, and area rearrangement.
Kanban: Pulling a product through the production process. This method of manufacturing process-flow-control only allows movement of material by pulling from a preceding process. Inventory is kept low. When quality errors are detected, less production is affected.
LAI (Lean Aerospace Initiative): A consortium at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology focused on understanding and applying lean and deploying knowledge around lean principles and practices in industry. Visit them on the Web at http://lean.mit.edu/.
Law of Physics: A physical law, or a law of nature, that is considered true.
Lead Time: From a customer standpoint it is the total time a customer must wait to receive a product after placing an order. Production and Procurement cycle time are subsets of lead-time.
Lean: Improving operations and the supply chain with an emphasis on the reduction of wasteful activities like waiting, transportation, material hand-offs, inventory, and overproduction.
Lean Supply Chain: A lean supply chain defines how a well-designed supply chain should operate, delivering products quickly to the end customer, with minimum waste.
Level Five System: Jim Collins (2001) describes in Good to Great as a level five leader as someone who is not only great when they are leading an organization but who enables the organization to remain great after they leave it. I describe the level-five-leader-created legacy as being a Level Five System.
Life Cycle Value Stream Management (LCVSM): A business model utilizing customer-focused value streams with clear accountability and integrated support structures to maximize customer and shareowner value. It incorporates a process for increasing the ration of value to non-value in the overall life cycle of customer deliverable products, systems, or services, and for ensuring the value stream meets or exceeds customer requirements. LCVS leasers are the people responsible for leading the LCVS processes and LCVS teams.
Machine with a Brain or Machine Vision (MV): (MV) is the application of computer vision to industry and manufacturing. It is a subfield of engineering that encompasses computer science, optics, mechanical engineering, and industrial automation.
Malcolm Baldrige Award: An award that recognizes yearly up to five companies that demonstrate outstanding quality management systems. The award, started in 1986, would later be known as the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Improvement Act which was created under the direction of ASQ and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The Act established a national award that recognizes total quality management in American industry.
Manufacturing Cycle Time: Amount of time that elapses between the times the production process begins on a product until it is completed.
Market Share: Our portion of the market in which we do business.
Master Black Belts (MBBs): Black belts who have undertaken two weeks of advanced training and have a proven track record of delivering results through various projects and project teams. They should be a dedicated resource to the deployment. Before they train, master black belts need to be certified in the material that they are to deliver. Their responsibilities include coaching black belts, monitoring team progress, and assisting teams when needed.
Material Flow: The movement of physical items through the entire value stream.
Material Flow Time: Inventory that is partially built, but not yet completed. production work-in-process is used to measure material flow time.
Material Handling: The process of moving material from a warehouse or staging to the point of use – often at an operator’s workstation.
Mean: Sum of all responses divided by the sample size.
Median: For a sample, the number that is in the middle when all observations are ranked in magnitude. For a population, the value at which the cumulative distribution is 0.5.
Milk Run: Routing a delivery vehicle in a way that allows it to make pick-ups or drop-offs at multiple locations on a single travel loop – as opposed to making several trips to each location.
Mixed Model Production/Scheduling (Every Product Every Interval – EPEI): Producing several different parts or products in varying sizes within a work cell so that production is in sync with customer demand.
Mixed Model Work Cell: Capability to produce a variety of items that differ in labor and material content, on the same production line; allows for efficient utilization of resources while providing rapid response to customer demands.
Monument: The process step that determine the upper limit on the number of finished items that can be produced with a value stream – also know as bottleneck.
Move Time: The time that a job spends in transit from one operation to another. Move time is a subset of cycle time.
Muda: A Japanese term indicating efforts that do not add value (waste). Some categories of muda are defects, over production or excess inventory, idle time, and poor layout.
Multiple Cycles: Products that go through a cell more than once in order to be completed. Typically used to provide greater flow visibility for products having a low build rate.
Multi-Tasking: The ability to perform more than one task or series of task in tandem.
Multi-Vari Chart: A chart that displays the variance within units, between units, between samples, and between lots. It is useful in detecting variation sources within a process.
Nonconformance: Failure to meet specification requirements.
Non-value Added: Any product, process, or service that does not add value to the ultimate customer.
On-Time Delivery: Percentage of product delivered to our customer that is on schedule according to our contracts.
One-Piece Flow: The movement of products through the manufacturing process one unit at a time. Compare to batch processing.
Out of Control: Control charts exhibit special causes conditions. The process is not predictable.
Out of Cycle Work: Tasks of an operator in a multi-operator process which require the operator to break the flow or leave the cell area (i.e. retrieve parts, getting paperwork, etc.)
Pareto Chart: A graphical technique used to quantify problems so that effort can be expended in fixing the “vital few” causes, as opposed to the “trivial many.” Named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist.
Pitch: The available time of work week divided by the total number of units scheduled for the work cell. Pitch is used as a heart beat of the work cell – known as a takt time for mixed model scheduling.
Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA): An improvement cycle based on the scientific method of proposing a change in a process, implementing the change, measuring the results, and taking appropriate action. The PDCA cycle has four stages:
Point of Use Stock: Storing inventory as close as possible to the process that requires them.
Poka-Yoke: A Japanese term indicating a mechanism that either prevents a mistake from occurring or makes a mistake obvious at a glance.
Policy Deployment (Hoshin Kanri): A management process that aligns – both vertically and horizontally – a firm’s functions and activities with its strategic objective. A specific plan is developed with precise goals, actions, milestones, responsibilities, and measures.
Population: Statistically a population is a group of data from a single distribution. In a practical sense, a population could also be considered to be a segment or a group of data from a single source or category. In the process of explaining tools and techniques, multiple populations may be discussed as originating from different sources, locations, or machines.
PPM (Parts per Million): An attribute measurement of defect rate, expressed in defects found divided by one million. Percent defects were once the standard. Note that a percentage-unit-improvement in parts-per-million (ppm) defect rate does not equate to the same percentage improvement in the sigma quality level.
Predictable Process: A stable, controlled process where variation in outputs is only caused by natural or random variation in the inputs or in the process itself.
Preventive Action: An action that is taken to eliminate from reoccurrence a potential nonconformity cause or other undesirable situation.
Probability Plot: Data are plotted on a selected probability paper coordinate system to determine if a particular distribution is appropriate (i.e., the data plot as a straight line) and to make statements about percentiles of the population. The plot can be used to make prediction statements about stable processes. Breyfogle (2008c) describes the creation of this plot.
Process: A series of steps or actions that must occur in a specific sequence to create a design or produces a completed order or product.
Process Capability/Performance Metric: IEE uses the term process capability/performance metric to describe a process’s predictive output in terms that everyone can understand. The process to determine this metric is:
Process Capacity Table: A tool for gathering information about the sequence of operations that make up a work process and the time required to complete each operation.
Process Delay: The time that batches or lots must wait until the next process begins.
Process Flow Diagram (Chart): Path of steps of work used to produce or do something.
Procurement Lead Time: The time required to obtain all necessary materials. Lead-time begins when a decision has been made to accept a new order to produce a new product and ends when production commences.
Product Development Cycle Time: Amount of time that elapses between the authorization to proceed in the design of a product (Decision Point D) and the introduction of the product into the factory (Decision Point E).
Productivity: The ratio of output to input. It provides information about the efficiency of your core processes.
Progressive Work Cell: Product manufactured in a sequential continuous flow incorporating Successive Checks and Takt Time; work is broken down by segments of time rather than by pieces of material.
Pull: A Lean term that results in an activity when a customer or down-stream process step requests the activity. A homebuilder that builds houses only when an agreement is reached on the sale of the house is using a pull system.
Pull System: A production system in which goods are built only when requested by a downstream process. A customer’s order “pulls” a product from the production system. Nothing is produced until it is needed or wanted downstream.
Purchasing Flow Time (PFT): The average number of weeks of active production stock we have in inventory for future production needs. A production stock week is currently used to measure purchasing flow time.
Push: A Lean term that results in an activity that a customer or down-stream process step has not specifically requested. This activity can create excessive waste and/or inventory. A home-builder that builds the houses on the speculation of sale is using a push system. If the house does not sell promptly upon completion, the homebuilder has created excess inventory for his company, which can be very costly.
Push System: A production system in which goods are produced and handed off to a downstream process, where they are stored until needed. This type of system creates excess inventory.
Quality Function Deployment: A structured process that provides a means to identify and carry customer requirements through each stage of product and service development and implementation. Quality responsibilities are effectively deployed to any needed activity within a company to ensure that appropriate quality is achieved.
Queue Time: The amount of time a job waits at a work center before setup or value-added work is performed on the job. Queue time is a subset of production lead-time.
Quick Changeover: A method of analyzing your organization’s manufacturing processes and then reducing the materials, skilled resources, and time needed for equipment setup, including the exchange of tools and dies. It allows your organization to implement small-batch production or one-piece flow in a cost-effective manner.
Radar Chart: A chart that is sometimes called a spider chart. The chart is a two-dimensional chart of three or more quantitative variables represented on axes from the same point.
Rapid Flow Cell: The overarching term that describes methods of production that implement Lean Principles to shorten product throughput time. These are alternatives to batch and push methods.
Red-Flag Condition: A situation in which the probability that errors will happen is high.
Return on Investment Capital (ROIC): Measures how well we use the money we invest in our business to generate a profit.
Right Sized Equipment: A design, production, or scheduling device that can be fitted directly into the flow of within a product family so that production no longer requires unnecessary transportation and waiting. Right sized equipment makes economical sense.
Root-Cause Analysis: A process of identifying problems in an organization, finding their causes, and creating the best solutions to keep them from happening again.
RPI: Radical Process Improvement – is a methodology that accelerates the continuous process improvement philosophy and generates dramatic results. The actual workshop phase focuses on a phase focuses on a cross-functional team on improving a process.
Rotation: A scheduled movement of operators from station to station.
Run time: The time a product is actually being worked on in design or production and the time an order is actually being processed. This is a subset of cycle time.
Sales/Employee: Amount of sales generated per employee.
Sales Growth: Year over year percentage change in sales.
Scorecard: A scorecard is to help manage an organization’s performance through the optimization and alignment of organizational units, business processes, and individuals. A scorecard can also provide goals and targets, which is to help individuals understand their organizational contribution. Scorecards span the operational, tactical, and strategic business aspects and decisions. A dashboard is to display information so that an enterprise can be run effectively. A dashboard is to organize and present information in a format that is easy to read and interpret.
Self-Inspection: An inspection performed by the operator at his or her own workstation or area.
Sensei: The Japanese term for “teacher”.
Setup Time: The time required for a specific machine, resource, work center, or assembly line to convert from production of the last good piece of lot A to the first good piece of lot B. This is a subset of cycle time.
Set-Up Reduction: The process of reducing the amount of time needed to changeover a process from the last part from the previous product to the first good part for the next process.
Shadow Board: A visual control technique that uses an image of an object to show where it should be stored.
Shingo Prize: Established in 1988, the prize promotes awareness of Lean manufacturing concepts and recognizes United States, Canada, and Mexico companies that achieve world-class manufacturing status. The philosophy is that world-class business performance may be achieved through focused core manufacturing and business process improvements.
Sigma: The Greek letter (σ) that is often used to describe the standard deviation of data.
Sigma Quality Level: A metric calculated by some to describe the capability of a process relative to its specification. A six sigma quality level is said to have a 3.4 ppm rate.
Single Piece Flow: The progressive movement of a single assembly through the assembly process with no stoppage, scrap, or backflow. Making and moving one piece at a time.
Six Sigma: Six Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing variability in manufacturing and business processes.
Social Stream: Analysis of relationships, organizational, procedural, and behavioral issues that impact the process or decision making. Often referred to as Social Stream Mapping.
Spaghetti Chart: Mapping physical movement of product as it passed thru the production or office process.
Stakeholders: Those people or organizations who are not directly involved with project work but are affected by its success or can influence its results. They may be process owners, managers affected by the project, and people who work in the studied process. Stakeholders also include internal departments, which support the process, finance, suppliers, and customers.
Standard Deviation (σ, s): A mathematical quantity that describes the variability of a response. It equals the square root of variance. The standard deviation of a sample (s) is used to estimate the standard deviation of a population (σ).
Standard Work: A documented process that establishes the most efficient way to perform a task that is observable and repeatable according to the Takt Time, Work Sequence, and Standard WIP of the product. Standard work yields certain measurable performance factors that are a base line for future reference.
Standard Work in Process (WIP): The minimum number of parts in a process that are required to make the process work.
Statistical Process Control (SPC): The application of statistical techniques in the control of processes. SPC is often considered to be a subset of SQC, where the emphasis in SPC is on the tools associated with the process but not on product acceptance techniques.
Statistical Quality Control (SQC): The application of statistical techniques in the control of quantity. SQC included the use of regression analysis, tests of significance, acceptance sampling, control charts, distributions, and so on.
Successive Checks: A verification of the previous stations’ work and communication and resolution of discrepancies if any are found.
Supermarket: A replenishment system that holds an amount of each product it produces in which each process simply produces what is withdrawn from its supermarket.
Takt Image: Creating an awareness of Takt time in areas where multiple cycles are used to build products and where flow is not readily visible.
Takt Time: The available production time divided by customer demand. Takt time sets the pace of production to match the rate of customer demand and becomes the drumbeat of any lean system. Takt time is calculated as follows: ((Available Production time in a day – lunch and breaks)/(Required production units in a day)).
Theory of Constraints (TOC): Constraints can be broadly classified as being internal resource, market or policy. The outputs of a system are a function of the whole system, not just individual processes. System performance is a function of how well constraints are identified and managed. When we view a system as a whole, we realize that the output is a function of the weakest link. The weakest link of the system is the constraint. If care is not exercised, we can be focusing on a subsystem that, even though improved, does not impact the overall system output. We need to focus on the orchestration of efforts so that we optimize the overall system, not individual pieces. Unfortunately, organization charts lead to workflow by function, which can result in competing forces within the organization. With TOC, systems are viewed as a whole and work activities are directed so that the whole system performance measures are improved.
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): A company wide preventative maintenance, improvement – related system to improve the efficiency and use of equipment.
Total Quality Management (TQM): A management program, which works on continuous product or service improvements through workforce involvement.
Turnover Rate (Voluntary): Voluntary separation divided by average full-time salaried head count for a rolling 12-month period.
Value Added: A capability (product or service) provided to the ultimate customer at a specific time, at a specific price, as defined by the customer.
Value Chain: Describes flowchart fashion both primary and support organizational activities and their accompanying 30,000-foot-level or satellite-level metrics. Example primary activity flow is developing product-market product-sell product-produce product-invoice/collect payments-report satellite-level metrics. Example support activities include IT, finance, HR, labor relations, safety and environment, and legal.
Value Stream: All of the actions and tasks, both value-added and non-value added, required to bring an item (an idea, information, product or service) from its inception through delivery. These include actions to process information from the customer and actions to transform the product on its way to the customer.
Variable Costs: Costs that vary with production or service/sales levels, such as the costs of raw materials used in the manufacturing process.
Visual Factory: Management by sight. Visual factory involves the collection and display of real-time information to the entire workforce at all times. Work cell bulletin boards and other easily-seen media might report information about orders, production schedules, quality, delivery performance, and financial health of business.
Visual Management: At a glance, without discussion, it tells people working and supporting an operation the working status and health of a cells function or operation.
Voice of the Customer (VOC): The identification and prioritization of true customer needs and requirements, which can be accomplished through focus groups, interviews, data analyses, and other methods.
Voice of the Process (VOP): A quantification of what the process delivers. A voice of the process to voice of the customer needs assessment can identify process improvement focus areas; for example, a 30,000-foot-level assessment indicates an 11 percent delivery-time nonconformance rate.
Waste: Any activity that takes time, resources, or space, but does not add value to a product or service.
WIP: A general description for inventory that is being processed within an operation or is awaiting another operation.
Work Combination: A mixture of people, processes, materials, and technology that comes together to enable the completion of a work process.
Workflow: The steps and motions employees take to perform their work tasks.
Workflow Diagram: A graphic that shows your organization’s current equipment layout and the movement of materials and workers during work processes.
Work Sequence: The sequential order in which tasks that make up a work process are performed.
Analog Circuit: A circuit in which the output varies as a continuous function of the input, as contrasted with digital circuit.
Assembly Drawing: A drawing depicting the locations of components, with their reference designators (q.v.), on a printed circuit.
Assembly House: A manufacturing facility for aPrttaching and soldering components to a printed circuit.
Board: Printed circuit board. Also, a CAD database which represents the layout of a printed circuit.
Board House: Board vendor. A manufacturer of printed circuit boards.
Body: The portion of an electronic component exclusive of its pins or leads.
CAD: Computer Aided Design. A system where engineers create a design and see the proposed product in front of them on a graphics screen or in the form of a computer printout or plot. In electronics, the result would be a printed circuit layout.
CAE: Computer Assisted Engineering. In electronics work, CAE refers to schematic software packages.
CAM: Computer Aided Manufacturing. (See CAM files)
CAM Files: CAM means Computer Aided Manufacturing. These are the data files used directly in the manufacture of printed wiring. The types of CAM files are 1) Gerber file, which controls a photoplotter, 2) NC Drill file, which controls an NC Drill machine and 3) fab and assembly drawings in soft form (pen-plotter files). CAM files represent the valuable final product of PCB design. They are handed off to the board house which further refines and manipulates CAM data in their processes, for example in step- and-repeat panelization. Some PCB design software companies refer to all plotter or printer files as CAM file, although some of the plots may be check plots which are not used in manufacture.
Card: Another name for a printed circuit board.
Card-Edge Connector: A connector which is fabricated as an integral portion of a printed circuit board along part of its edge. Often employed to enable a daughter or add-on card.
Capture: Extract information automatically through the use of software, as opposed to hand-entering of data into a computer file.
Check Plots: Pen plots that are suitable for checking only. Pads are represented as circles and thick traces as rectangular outlines instead of filled-in artwork. This technique is used to enhance transparency of multiple layers.
Chip on Board: In this technology, integrated circuits are glued and wire-bonded directly to printed circuit boards instead of first being packaged. The electronics for many mass-produced toys are embedded by this system, which can be identified by the black glob of plastic sitting on the board. Underneath that glob (technical term: glob top), is a chip with fine wires bonded to both it and the landing pads on the board.
Clad: A copper object on a printed circuit board. Specifying certain text items for a board to be “in clad” means that the text should be made of copper, not silkscreen.
Component: Any of the basic parts used in building electronic equipment, such as a resistor, capacitor, DIP, or connector, etc.
Component Library: A representation of components as decals, stored in a computer data file which can be accessed by a PCB CAD program.
Connection: One leg of a net. Also called a “pin pair”.
Connectivity: The intelligence inherent in PCB CAD software which maintains the correct connections between pins of components as defined by the schematic.
Connector: A plug or receptacle which can be easily joined to or separated from its mate. Multiple-contact connectors join two or more conductors with others in one mechanical assembly.
Decal: A graphic software representation of a component, so named because hand tape-up of printed circuit boards employed the use of pull-off and paste decals to represent components. Also called a part, footprint, or package. On the manufactured board the body is an epoxy-ink outline.
Digital Circuit: A circuit which operates like a switch (it is either “on” or “off”) and can make logical decisions. It is used in computers or similar decision-making equipment.
DIP: Abbreviation for dual in-line package. A type of housing for integrated circuits. The standard form is a molded plastic container of varying lengths and 0.3 inch wide, with two rows of pins space 0.1 inch between centers of adjacent pins.
Double-Track: Slang for fine line design with two traces between DIP pins.
Dry Film Solder Mask: A solder mask film applied to a printed board with photographic methods. This method can manage the higher resolution required for fine line design and surface mount. It is more expensive than liquid photo imageable solder mask.
Fab: Short for fabrication.
Fabrication Drawing: A drawing used to aid the construction of a printed board. It shows all the locations of the holes to be drilled, their sizes and tolerances, dimensions of the board edges, and notes on the materials and methods to be used. Called “fab drawing” for short. It relates the board edge to at least on hole location as a reference point so that the NC Drill file can be properly lined up.
Fine Line Design: Printed circuit design permitting two (rarely three) traces between adjacent dip pins. It entails the use of an either dry film solder mask or liquid photo imageable solder mask (LPI), both of which are more accurate than wet solder mask.
Fine Pitch: Refers to chip packages with lead pitches below 0.050″. The largest pitch in this class of parts is 0.8mm, or about 0.031″. Lead pitches as small as 0.5mm (0.020″) are used.
Finger: A gold-plated terminal of a card-edge connector. [Derived from its shape.]
Footprint:
Gerber File: Data file used to control a photoplotter. Named after Gerber Scientific Co., who made the original vector photoplotter.
Glob Top: A blob of non-conductive plastic, often black in color, which protects the chip and wire bonds on a packaged IC and on a chip on board. This specialized plastic has a low coefficient of thermal expansion so that ambient temperature changes will not rip loose the wire bonds it is designed to protect. In high-volume chip on board production, these are deposited by automated machinery and are round. In prototype work, they are deposited by hand and can be custom-shaped; however, in designing for manufacturability, one assumes a prototype product will “take- off” and ultimately have high market demand, and so lays out chip on board to accommodate a round glob top with adequate tolerance for machine-driven “slop-over”.
Header: The portion of a connector assemble which is mounted on a printed circuit.
IC: Integrated Circuit.
IPC: The Institute for Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits, the final American authority on how to design and manufacture printed wiring. In 1999, IPC changed its name from Institute of Interconnecting and Packaging Electronic Circuits to IPC. The new name is accompanied with an identity statement, Association Connecting Electronics Industries.
Laser Photoplotter: (also “laser plotter”) A photoplotter which simulates a vector photoplotter by using software to create a raster image of the individual objects in a CAD database, then plotting the image as a series of lines of dots at fine resolution. A laser photoplotter is capable of more accurate and consistent plots than a vector photoplotter.
Lead: (pronounced “leed”) A terminal on a component.
Liquid Photo imageable Solder Mask (LPI): A mask sprayed on using photographic imaging techniques to control deposition. It is the most accurate method of mask application and results in a thinner mask than dry film solder mask. It is often preferred for dense SMT.
LPI: Stands for Liquid Photo imageable. Refers to liquid photo imageable solder mask.
Mil: One thousandth of an inch.
Multimeter: A portable test instrument which can be used to measure voltage, current, and resistance.
NC Drill: Numeric Control drill machine. A machine used to drill the holes in a printed board at exact locations, which are specified in a data file.
Negative:
Node: A pin or lead which will have at least one wire connected to it.
Open: Open circuit. An unwanted break in the continuity of an electrical circuit which prevents current from flowing.
Package:
Panel: Material (most commonly an epoxy-copper laminate known as FR-4) sized for fabrication of printed circuit boards. The most common panel size is 12″ by 18″, of which 11″ by 17″ is available for printed circuitry.
Panelize:
Part:
PCB: Printed circuit board.
PCB Database: All the data fundamental to a PCB design, stored as one or more files on a computer.
Photoplotter: Device used to generate artwork photographically by plotting objects (as opposed to copying an entire image at once as with a camera) onto film for use in manufacturing printed wiring.
Pin: A terminal on a component, whether SMT or through-hole. [Derived from its physical shape on through-hole components, which predated SMT.] Also called lead.
Plated-Through Hole: A hole in a PWB with metal plating added after it is drilled. Its purpose it to serve either as a contact point for a through-hole component or as a via.
Plastic Leaded Chip Carrier: An SMT chip package that is rectangular or square- shaped with leads on all four sides. The leads are spaced at 0.050 inches, so this package is not considered fine pitch.
Positive:
Printed Circuit Board: A flat plate or base of insulating material containing a pattern of conducting material. It becomes an electrical circuit when components are attached and soldered to it.
The conducting material is commonly copper which has been coated with solder or plated with tin or tin-lead alloy. The usual insulating material is epoxy laminate. But there are many other kinds of materials used in more exotic technologies.
Single-sided boards, the most common style in mass-produced consumer electronic products, have all conductors on one side of the board. With two-sided boards, the conductors, or copper traces, can travel from one side of the board to the other through plated-thru holes called vias, or feedthroughs. In multilayer boards, the vias can connect to internal layers as well as either side.
PWB: Printed Wiring Board; same as PCB.
QFP: Quad Flat Pack, a fine-pitch SMT package that is rectangular or square with gull-wing shaped leads on all four sides. The lead pitch of a QFP is typically either 0.8mm or 0.65mm, although there are variations on this theme with smaller lead pitches: TQFP also 0.8mm; PQFP tooled at either 0.65mm (0.026″) or 0.025″ and SQFP at 0.5mm (0.020″).
Any of these packages can have a wide variety of lead counts from 44 leads on up to 240 or more. Although these terms are descriptive, there are no industry- wide standards for sizes. Any printed circuit designer will need a spec sheet for the manufacturer’s part, as a brief description like “PQFP-160” is inadequate to define the mechanical size and lead pitch of the part.
Rat’s nest: A bunch of straight lines (unrouted connections) between pins which represents graphically the connectivity of a PCB CAD database. [Derived from the pattern of the lines: as they crisscross the board, the lines form a seemingly haphazard and confusing mess similar to a rat ‘s nest.)
Reference Designator (abbrv. “Ref Des”): The name of component on a printed circuit by convention beginning with one or two letters followed by a numeric value. The letter designates the class of component, e.g., “Q” is commonly used as a prefix for transistors. Reference designators appear as usually white or yellow epoxy ink (the “silkscreen”) on a circuit board. They are placed close to their respective components but not underneath them, so that they are visible on the assembled board. By contrast, on an assembly drawing a reference designator is often placed within the boundaries of a footprint — a very useful technique for eliminating ambiguity on a crowded board where reference designators in the silk screen may be near more than one component.
RF: Radio Frequency.
Route:
Schematic:
A diagram which shows, by means of graphic symbols, the electrical connections, and functions of a specific circuit arrangement.
Short: Short circuit. An abnormal connection of relatively low resistance between two points of a circuit. The result is excess (often damaging) current between these points. Such a connection is considered to have occurred in a printed wiring CAD database or artwork anytime conductors from different nets either touch or come closer than the minimum spacing allowed for the design rules being use.
Silkscreen: (Also called “silkscreen legend”)
Single Track: PCB design with only one route between adjacent DIP pins.
SMD: Surface Mount Device.
SMT: Surface Mount Technology
Solder Mask: A technique wherein everything on a circuit board is coated with a plastic except 1) the contacts to be soldered, 2) the gold-plated terminals of any card-edge connectors and 3) fiducial marks.
Stuff: Attach and solder components to (a printed wiring board).
Sub-Panel: A group of printed circuits (called modules) arrayed in a panel and handled by both the board house and the assembly house as though it were a single printed wiring board. The sub-panel is usually prepared at the board house by routing most of the material separating individual modules, leaving small tabs. The tabs are strong enough so that the sub-panel can be assembled as a unit, and weak enough so that final separation of assembled modules is easily done.
Surface Mount: Surface mount technology. The technology of creating printed wiring wherein components are soldered to the board without using holes. The result is higher component density, allowing smaller PWB’s. Abbreviated SMT.
Symbol: A simplified design representing a part in a schematic circuit diagram.
TAB: Tape Automated Bonding.
Tented Via: A via with dry film solder mask completely covering both its pad and its plated-thru hole. This completely insulates the via from foreign objects, thus protecting against accidental shorts, but it also renders the via unusable as a test point. Sometimes vias are tented on the top side of the board and left uncovered on the bottom side to permit probing from that side only with a test fixture.
Terminal: A point of connection for two or more conductors in an electrical circuit; one of the conductors is usually an electrical contact or lead of a component.
Test Coupon: An area of patterns on the same fabrication panel as the PWB but separate from the electrical circuits and outside the actual board outline. It is cut away from the printed wiring board prior to assembly and soldering of components. It can be used for destructive testing.
Through-Hole: (Of a component, also spelled “thru-hole”). Having pins designed to be inserted into holes and soldered to pads on a printed board. Contrast with surface mount.
Thru-Hole: Same as through-hole.
Trace: Segment of a route.
Track: Trace.
UL: Underwriter’s Laboratories, Inc., a corporation supported by some underwriters for the purpose of establishing safety standards on types of equipment or components.
Vector Photoplotter: (also “Vector Plotter”, or “Gerber Photoplotter” after Gerber Scientific Co., which built the first vector photoplotters for commercial use) It plots a CAD database on photographic film in a darkroom by drawing each line with a continuous lamp shined through an annular ring aperture and creating each pad by flashing the lamp through a specially sized and shaped aperture. The “apertures” are thin trapezoidal pieces of plastic which are mostly opaque, but with a transparent portion that controls the size and shape of the light pattern. The apertures are mounted on an “aperture wheel” which can hold up to 24 apertures. Gerber photoplotters, if set up by an experienced craftsman, are well-suited for printed circuit artwork generation. Compare with laser photoplotter, which is faster and has largely replaced the vector photoplotter. There are still vector photoplotters in use. Some manufacturers take advantage of the large bed size of the largest Gerber photoplotters, roughly the size of a full-sized billiards table. This enables the production of very large photo plots.
Via: Feed-through. A plated-through hole in a PWB used to route a trace vertically in the board, that is, from one layer to another.
VLSI: Very Large-Scale Integration.
Wet Solder Mask: Applied by means of distributing wet epoxy ink through a silk screen, a wet solder mask has a resolution suitable for single-track design but is not accurate enough for fine-line design.
Wire: Besides its usual definition of a strand of conductor, wire on a printed board also means a route or track.
Wire Wrap Area: A portion of a board riddled with plated-through holes on a 100-mil grid. Its purpose is for accepting circuits which may be found necessary after a PWB has been manufactured, stuffed, tested, and debugged.
Abrasive Wheels: These are wheels made from hard abrasive materials such as Carborundum, used for grinding.
Acme thread: The name of a type of screw thread with a 29-degree angle.
Acute angle: An angle that is less than 90 degrees.
Adapter: This is a device which is used to adapt one size of tool to fit a certain machine.
Allowance: This is the difference in dimensions of mating parts, some parts may require a tighter fit whilst others may need a more loose fit.
Alloy: The result of mixing two types of metal to give new properties not associated with the constituent metals.
Angle iron: Simple a piece of metal with an L-shaped cross-section.
Annealing: This is the controlled heat treatment and cooling cycles of the metal to remove any stresses which have built up and also to make the metal softer and therefore easier to work with.
Anodizing: This is a thin protective oxide layer produced during an electrolytic process in which the metal forms the anode. Read more about Anodizing.
Apron: The part of a lathe which contains and covers the gears, clutches, etc.
Arbor: This is a shaft/spindle for holding the cutting tool.
Assembly: Any number of parts fitted together to make up the mechanism of a machine.
Axis: This is the line passing through the center of an object about which the object can rotate. Primarily used as part of a CNC machines name, for instance, 5 Axis CNC Machining.
Back Rake: The back rake is the angled surface on the cutting edge of machining tools.
Bandsaw: This is a power-driven saw with a narrow, continuous blade moving at high speeds between a set of pulleys. Read about our sawing service here.
Bar Stock: These are bars of various lengths and diameter, usually supplied in flat, round, hexagon, octagon, and square shapes. We supply stock at amazing prices.
Bearing: Rollers, and balls placed between moving parts to reduce friction and wear.
Bed: A flat, strong surface found on CNC machines. Used for the accurate machining of parts.
Bench Grinder: This is a powered machine for shaping the cutting edges of tools.
Bench Lathe: A bench lathe is a machine mounted on a bench, usually smaller than floor standing models.
Bit/Tool: This is the hardened steel tool which is very accurately machined to create a cutting part of a machine.
Blind Hole: A hole made in any workpiece which does not pass all the way through it.
Block, Jo (Jo Block): The name for a Johannson gage block, a very accurate measuring device.
Brine: A saltwater solution for quenching or cooling when heat treating the steel.
Brinell Hardness: A method of testing the hardness of a metal by controlled pressure of a hardened steel ball of a given size.
Broach: A long, tapered cutting tool with serration’s which, when forced through a hole or across a surface, cuts a desired shape or size.
Bull Gear: The large crank gear of a shaper.
Burnishing: This is the process using a metal harder than the metal being finished to create a smooth and glossy surface.
Burr: These are the sharp edges left over on metal parts after they are cut.
Bushing: A sleeve or a lining for a bearing or a drill jig to guard against wear.
CAD: Computer-aided design. CAD programs allow you to digitally create a part that can be milled, 3D printed or rendered.
Caliper: A very accurate device used to measure inside or outside dimensions.
Cam: A device for converting regular rotary motion to irregular rotary or reciprocating motion.
CAM: Computer-aided machining, or sometimes known as computer-aided manufacturing. CAM is a computer program that takes a CAD file (IGES, STEP, etc.) and allows you to create tool paths for the cutting process on a CNC machine. CAM tells your CNC machine where to go, how fast to move and spin.
Carbide Tool Bits: Carbide is a very hard alloy which is inserted into a cutting tool when working with hard materials.
Carbon Steel: A broad term applied to tool steel other than high-speed or alloy steel.
Carborundum: A trade name for an abrasive compounded of silicon and carbon (silicon carbide).
Carriage: The main part of a lathe that carries the cutting tool and consists of the saddle, compound rest and apron.
Case Hardening: This is a heat-treating process which makes the surface layer of steel substantially harder than the interior or core.
Cathead: A collar or sleeve which fits loosely over a shaft to which it is clamped by setscrews.
Center: A point or axis around which anything revolves or rotates.
Center Drill: A combined countersink and drill used to prepare work for mounting centers.
Center Gage: This is a small, flat gage with 60-degree angles and is used for grinding cutting tools in a lathe.
Center Head: A part of a combination square set that is used to find the center of or to bisect a round or square workpiece.
Center, Live: A center that revolves with the work. Generally. this is the headstock center.
Center Punch: A pointed hand tool made of hardened steel and shaped somewhat like a pencil.
Centerless Grinding: Centerless grinding is a machining process that uses abrasive cutting to remove material from a workpiece. It is typically used in preference to other grinding processes for operations where many parts must be processed in a short time.
Ceramic Cutter: These are cutting tools made from aluminum oxide or silicon carbide.
Chamfer: The bevel or angular surface cut on the edge or a corner of a machined part.
Chuck: A device on a machine tool to hold the workpiece or a cutting tool.
Clearance: The distance or angle by which one objector surface clears another.
Clearance Angle: The angle between the rear surface of a cutting tool and the surface of the work at the point of contact.
Climb Milling: A method of milling in which the worktable moves in the same direction as the direction of rotation of the milling center.
CNC: No glossary of machine shop terms would be complete without this definition. CNC means Computer Numerical Control. This means a computer converts the design produced by Computer Aided Design software (CAD), into numbers. We’re the CNC Machining experts.
Collet: A precision work holding chuck which centers finished round stock automatically when tightened.
Combination Square: A drafting and layout tool combining a square, a level. A protractor, and a center head.
Contour: The outline of an object.
Coolant: A common term is given to various cutting fluids or compounds used in machining to increase the tool life and to improve surface finish on the material of the parts.
Corrosion: Oxidation (rusting) or similar chemical change in metals.
Cross Feed: The feed that operates across the axis of the workpiece or at right angles to the main or principal feed on a machine.
Cross Section: A view showing an internal structure as it would be revealed by cutting through the piece in any plane.
Crucible Steel: High-Grade tool steel made by melting selected materials in a crucible.
Cutting Speed: The surface speed of the workpiece in a lathe or a rotating cutter, commonly expressed in feet per minute (FPM) and converted to revolutions per minute (RPM) for proper setting on the machine.
Cutting Tool: A hardened piece of metal (tool steel) that is machined and ground so that it has the shape and cutting edges appropriate for the operation for which it is to be used.
Cyaniding: A process of case hardening steel by heating in molten cyanide.
Deburr: The process is used to remove sharp edges. You can read more about deburring here.
Die: A tool used to form or stamp out metal parts’, also, a tool used to cut external threads.
Dovetail: A two-part slide bearing assembly used in machine tool construction for the precise alignment and smooth operation of the movable components of the machine.
Drill: A pointed tool that is rotated to cut holes in the material.
Drill Bushing: A hardened steel guide inserted in jigs, fixtures. or templates to provide a guide for the drill in drilling holes in their exact location.
Drill Press: An upright powered machine for drilling holes in metal, wood, or other material.
Drill Rod: A high-carbon steel rod accurately ground to size with a smooth finish.
Drill Sleeve: An adapter with an internal and external taper which fits tapered shank tools such as drills or reamers to adapt them to a larger size machine spindle.
Ductility: The property of a metal that permits it to be drawn. rolled, or hammered without fracturing or breaking.
Extrusion: A shaped part resulting from forcing a plastic material such as lead, tin, aluminum. zinc., copper, rubber, and so forth. through a die opening.
Fixturing: A term given to the apparatus or structure that is holding your work which is often custom-made to hold your specific part.
Flange: A relatively thin rim around a part.
Flute: The grooves found in cutting tools which provide a cutting edge and space for the chips to escape and allow the cutting fluids to reach the cutting edges.
Follower Rest: Support for long, slender work turned in the lathe. It is mounted on the carriage, travels close to and with the cutting tool, and keeps the work from springing away.
Free Fit: A class of fit intended for use where accuracy is not essential. or where large temperature variations are likely to be encountered which allows the metal to expand.
Fulcrum: The point or support on which a lever turns.
Gage Anyone of a large variety of devices for measuring or checking the dimensions of objects.
Gage Blocks: Steel blocks machined to extremely accurate dimensions.
Gang Milling: A milling setup where a number of cutters are arranged on an arbor so that several surfaces can be machined at the same time.
Gear Blank: A stamping, casting, or any, piece of material from which A gear is to be machined.
Gun Drilling: Gun drilling is a deep hole drilling process which uses a long, often thin, cutting tool to produce holes in metal at high depth-to-diameter ratios.
Handwheel: Any adjusting or feeding mechanism shaped like a wheel and operated by hand,
Hardening: A heat-treating process for steel which increases its hardness and tensile strength and reduces its ductility.
Headstock: The fixed or stationary end of a lathe or similar machine tool.
Helix: A path formed as a point advances uniformly around a cylinder, as the thread on a screw or the flutes on a drill. Think DNA or a ‘spiral’ staircase.=
Helix Angle: The angle between the direction of the threads around a screw and a line running at a right angle to the shank.
Hex: A term used for anything shaped like a hexagon. Usually applied for bar stock.
High-speed Steel: This is alloy steel which is commonly used for cutting tools because of its ability to remove metal at a much faster rate than carbon steel tools.
Honing: The process of finishing ground surfaces to a high degree of accuracy and smoothness.
Hot-rolled Steel: Steel which is rolled to finished size. while hot. Identified by a dark oxide scale left on the surface.
Idler: A gear or gears placed between two other gears to transfer motion from one gear to the other without changing their speed or ratio.
Independent chuck: A chuck in which each jaw may be moved independently of the others. Useful for some types of parts.
Indicator: A precision instrument which shows variations of thousandths of an inch or less when testing the trueness or alignment of a workpiece, fixture, or machine.
Jacobs Chuck: A common term for the drill chuck used in either the headstock spindle or in the tailstock for holding straight-shank drills, taps, reamers, or small diameter workpieces.
Jarno: A standard taper having 0.600-inch taper per foot used on some machine tools.
Jig: A production work holding device that locates the workpiece and guides the cutting tool (see fixture). Used primarily for accuracy and in production machining.
Kerf: The width of the cut left by a Saw.
Knee: That part of a column of a knee-type milling machine which carries the saddle and the table and provides the machine with vertical feed adjustments.
Knurl: A decorative gripping surface of straight-line or diagonal design made by uniformly serrated rolls called knurls provides better grip.
Lead: The distance a thread will advance along its axis in one complete revolution.
Lead Screw: The long, precision screw located in front of the lathe bed geared to the spindle, used for cutting threads.
Machinability: The degree of difficulty with which a metal may be machined, view metal data sheets.
Magnetic Chuck: A flat smooth-surfaced work holding device which operates by magnetism to hold ferrous metal workpieces for grinding.
Mandrel: A precision-made tapered shaft to support work for machining between centers.
Metal Plating: This is a method of plating where metals are deposited on the substrates. This process is used to coat and protect metals and other materials by forming a thin layer of metal over the substrates.
Mild Steel: A term used for low-carbon machine steel.
Mill: A milling machine; also, the act of performing an operation on the milling machine. milling, climb – See climb milling. milling, face-See face milling.
Multiple-thread Screw: A screw made of two or more threads to provide an increased lead with a specified pitch.
Nitrating: A case hardening process in which ammonia is introduced to the surface of certain alloys.
Nonferrous: Any metal containing no iron, such as brass and aluminum.
Normalizing: Process of heating a ferrous metal or alloy to above its critical temperature and cooling in still air to room temperature to relieve Internal stresses.
Oil Hardening: The process of quenching in oil when heat treating alloy steel to bring out certain qualities.
Parallels: Hardened steel bars accurately ground to size and made in pairs in many different sizes to support work in precision setups.
Pilot: A guide at the end of a counterbore which keeps it aligned with the hole.
Pilot Hole: A starting hole for large drills, reducing the resistance, and aid in maintaining the accuracy of the larger hole.
Pitch: The distance from any point on a thread to the corresponding point on the adjacent thread. measured parallel to the axis.
Pitch Diameter: The diameter of a thread at an imaginary point where the width of the groove and the with of the thread are equal.
Plain Cutter: A milling cutter with cutting teeth on the periphery only.
Pyrometer: A device for measuring the high temperatures in a heat-treating furnace.
Quench: To rapidly cool heated metal in water, oil brine, or air in the process of heat treating.
Rack: An array of gears spaced on a straight bar.
Rake: That surface of a cutting tool against which the chips bear while being severed.
Recess: An internal groove.
Roughing: The fast removal of stock to reduce a workpiece to approximate dimensions. Leaving only enough material to finish the part to specifications, usually in a separate process.
SAE steel: Steel manufactured under the specifications by the Society of Automotive Engineers.
Sandblasting: A process of blowing sand by compressed air with considerable force through a hose against an object.
Scale: The rough surface on hot. finished steel and castings. Also, a shop term for steel rules.
Set Screw: A plain screw used principally for locking adjustable parts in position.
Setup: The preparation of a machine tool to complete a specific operation. It includes mounting the workpiece and necessary tools and fixtures and selecting the proper speeds. feeds, depth of cut and coolants. Usually, the only part of machining on CNC machines other than part removal.
Shank: The part of a tool or similar object which connects the principal operating part to the handle, socket’, or chuck by which it is held or moved.
Shims: Very thin sheets of metal machined to a very precise thickness and used between parts to obtain desired fits.
Shoulder: A term for the step made between two machined surfaces.
Shrink Fit: A class of fit made when the outer member is expanded by heating to fit over a shaft, and then contracts or shrinks tightly to the shaft when cooled.
Side Cutter: This is a milling cutter that has cutting teeth on the side as well as on the periphery or circumference.
Sine Bar: A precision instrument for laying out, setting, testing, and otherwise dealing with angular work.
Slabbing Cutter: A wide, plain milling cutter having helical teeth. Used for producing large, flat surfaces. Sleeve.
Slotter: An attachment which operates with a reciprocating motion.
Spindle: A rotating device widely used in machine tools. such as lathes., milling machines, drill presses, etc.
Spot Facing: Finishing a bearing surface around the top of a hole.
Spur Gear: A gear having teeth parallel to the axis of the shaft on which it is mounted.
Steady Rest: The support that is clamped to the bed of a lathe used when machining a long workpiece. Sometimes called a center rest.
Step Block: A fixture designed like a series step to provide support at various heights required for setups.
Stock: A term for the materials used to make parts in a machine tool., for instance, steel, aluminum, plastic, etc.
Surface Grinding: The process of grinding flat surfaces on a surface grinding machine.
Surface Plate: An accurately machined and scraped flat metal piece (usually of cast iron) used to check the flatness of surfaces.
Swiss Machining: Swiss Lathes are made specifically to provide precision accuracy down to a few micrometers. Swiss machining lathes hold the workpiece on the Z-axis using a collet and guide bushing.
Tailstock: The part of a lathe which supports the end of a workpiece with a center.
Tang: The flat on the shank of a cutting tool, such as a drill, reamer or end mill, that fits a slot in -the spindle of a machine to keep the tool from slipping.
Tap: A hardened tool used to cut threads on the inside of a round hole.
Taper: A uniform increase or decrease in the size or diameter of a workpiece.
Tensile Strength: The property of a metal which resists force applied to pull it apart.
Tenth: A machinist term for a unit of measurement equaling 0.0001″ or one ten-thousandth of an inch, NOT to be mistaken with 0.1″ or a tenth of an inch.
Tool Steel: A general classification for high-carbon steel that can be heat treated to a hardness required for metal cutting tools such as punches, dies. Drills etc.
Traverse: Movement across the surface of the work being machined.
Truing: Centering or aligning a workpiece or cutting tool so that an operation can be performed accurately.
Tube Flaring: The Tube flaring process is a method of forming the end of a tube into a funnel shape so it can be held by a threaded fitting.
Tumbler Gears: Pair of small lever-mounted gears on a lathe used to engage or to change the direction of the lead screw.
Universal Grinder: A versatile grinding machine designed to perform both internal and external grinding operations. including straight and tapered surfaces on tools and cutters.
Ways: The flat or V-shaped bearing surfaces on a machining tool that guide and align the parts which they support.
Working Drawing: A drawing. blueprint, or sketch of a part, structure, or machine.
