Lean manufacturing

Google defines lean manufacturing:
Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply "lean", is a systematic method for the elimination of waste ("Muda") within a manufacturing system. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden ("Muri") and waste created through unevenness in work loads ("Mura").

First what is waste? Waste can be things thrown into the trash or unused resources such as machines and people. Are you using the machines to capacity? Are you throwing away things that can be recycled or re-purposed? Are the people working efficiently? The easiest way to find where to start is by looking at what costs the most to the organization. If labor is an increasing negative variable then first focus on this. Time the process from the start to the finish. Do this 10 times and set a standard. When you set reachable expectations you will see that the people will react positively. Set up tracking boards. Monitor by day, shift and job. Post the results so that each shift or person performing the task have something to meet or exceed. You should find that a good operator will take this as a challenge to beat their score or others. As long as the job is being done correctly and not causing quality issues let them. 

Get the team involved in solving negative variances. In my minimal experience, I have seen negative variances improve just by sitting down and showing what the variances are and asking for ways to improve. I might suggest anything thrown away from a particularly expensive job to be checked to be sure the correct quality criteria is being followed. Get the people that are doing the job to understand the ramifications of throwing away good product. Let them help to solve the problem. This creates "buy in". Meaning, if they are actively involved, they will feel more ownership. Definitely praise good results. They will be more agreeing to take on other improvement tasks if they feel ownership and what they did mattered. Ask if they see where this improvement could be used elsewhere. The people closest to the production see more and can prevent more than you may think. In the past I have heard sayings like "when in doubt throw it out". This promotes more wasteful activity. Let the team know how this will affect the goals within the facility. Usually once everyone is in the same direction the team will help monitor and prevent bad situations and big loses. 

Good site to explore lean concepts!!!