Inexpensive Kaizen toolbox foam alternative (2018) | Hacker News Reader

Inexpensive Kaizen toolbox foam alternative (2018)

tacomaworld.com

63 pointswalterbell51 comments

So far I’ve not seen any discussion here of the role of “kaizen boxes” in kanban (production card) pull manufacturing.

They’re a simple way to control batch size and hence limit work in progress to just what’s needed.

Rather simplified that is, if you can see the kanban on the factory floor go and get a matching box.

Make exactly the number of parts needed to fill every slot in the box. No more, no less.

Then place the box over the kanban. Don’t make anything of this type again until someone has removed the box and you next see the kanban again.

That can be expanded so that the tools needed to make the part are kept with the empty part container reducing the need to search for them when required.

Fastcap makes and uses layered/kaizen foam, as seen in this 2014 tour of their WA factory floor with task-specific workstations and tool layouts, https://youtube.com/watch?v=jYby_HczyDA

There are a few vendors who sell precut foam for popular toolbox brands, e.g https://www.kaizensource.com/?catalog/inserts/brands & https://kaizeninserts.com/products

Copper tube can be sharpened and used to cut cylindrical holes in foam, e.g. for protecting small objects, https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/241220.page

This is a neat hack, but honestly this is how it's done in actual places that use it anyhow. We don't buy the expensive branded crap; we just layer two colors of foam (one for top, one for bottom outline) and glue it together.

At least that's how it's been done in Naval Aviation for decades, and I can say in my industry contact (Lean Six-Sigma seminars/training/etc.) noone at those other businesses bought anything fancy.

Most of the fancy foam I've seen used in the "real world" is as much marketing as utility. Yoga mats are for working toolboxes, expensive branded, color-coordinated, laser-cut foam is to make the purchaser feel like James Bond.

Heck, the most popular tool chests I see in industry are from Harbor Freight. Factory floors don't need Snap-On, they need good enough + cheaper to replace when someone drives a forklift through it.

I have to redo my kitchen and I am seriously thinking about replacing the cabinets with Harbor freight rolling tool cabinets

With a concrete countertop that would be really cool.

Yes but please talk to your wife about this first. :)

She called my bluff. She’s okay with it!

Well they already have these pretty neat butcher block surfaces, but I did do one floor in polished concrete and it’s pretty rad

hi, professional diesel engine tech here. if I can clarify: kaizen boxes are exclusively for critical process control like foreign object ingress control and things like reactor maintenance, high speed rail, and aerospace. they are audited, insane, and not generally used outside certain critical kaizen processes. failing a kbox check too often can get you fired.

if you find comfort at any level with kboxes --and you have a medical condition that could exacerbate affinity toward it-- I'm not sure its healthy. NASCAR doesn't use them, most production Indy teams don't either. they are a critical process control and not "normal."

Having previously worked on Naval Reactors:

I did not once see a Kaizen box there. If we accidentally left tools in the reactor compartment and they got hot they got tossed into the box in there and that was that.

That said, I do enjoy a properly sorted box and prefer them. That may simply be a decade plus of being used to using them though; they are second nature to me.

Yiiikes, how often were tools left where they shouldn't have been left around reactors? It seems like a process failure--if you can leave something extra then how can you trust you aren't forgetting something essential, like tightening a fitting, etc.

Foreign material exclusion and quality assurance have different procedures. Sounds like it wasn’t a big deal, so the tools definitely weren’t left in an FME zone.

Totally separate QA between process and tools in that world. It was a heck of an interesting adjustment when I moved to aviation. Far less QA on process and far more on tools/FOD.

My last job invoked using kaizen to reform marketing strategy and IT tooling (aka making me revisit the 10 year old Access databases to create more user friendly interfaces for Marketing, and forcing Excel to generate template documents via SharePoint 2010 data that nobody wanted to contribute to). It didn't work, because once the initial excitement wore off nobody cared except me. Not that this applies to what you said, but it is what it is.

What an unnecessarily negative response. Maybe some people have tools in a vehicle toolbox that benefit from this type of system to minimize movement. Maybe people just like to keep things organized.

I used it when building assembly cells where it provided an easy way to prevent clutter and force standardization.

A quick visual check could confirm the state of the cell and there was no doubt where things went. I can't imagine a production environment without it, or something like it.

We never bought foam and would take closed cell foam from the garbage, cut through holes, and fit them in trays painted black for contrast. Quick, easy, and cheap.

> kaizen boxes are exclusively for critical process control [...]

Hi, Professional Supply Chain Consultant here, who also coaches and trains Six Sigma!

This absolutely isn't true in reality, and these are used quite frequently across logistics and manufacturing to maintain '5 S'. There is absolutely no reason they can't be deployed for non-critical tasks, and often are used to help productivity and ensure that items get put back to the right place each time.

I assume they are used more in manufacturing and factories? That's the environment kaizen was born in, to optimise production lines.

My father passed away a few years back and I inherited all of his random cases where he'd shadowed foam for his tools. The foam and glue in the cases had largely deteriorated and was falling apart. This stuff was 20-30 years old, and while I don't think it was ever exposed to elements, it probably went through some heat and cold cycling (in a garage) I wonder what the typical life of any given cell foam is.

Well, nearly all foam is plastic-based. So find a plastic you like, and search for "[plastic name] foam" using your preferred search engine.

The common fabrics people wear are thermoplastics - nylon and polyester. Just like with Pyrex glass (borosilicate), doping plastics makes them way more resistant to the elements.

Brominated and fluorinated plastics are extremely chemically and heat resistant. This is in comparison to cheaper, weaker plastics like polystyrene (styrofoam) - which shouldn't even be used near food, but is still often used for takeout containers and disposable cutlery. Unfortunately it degrades with moderate heat and leeches endocrine disruptors into the food.

Whenever I buy anything plastic, that I'll use with food, I get consumer grade high density polyethylene (HDPE) or polypropylene (PP.)

If you did want the maximum extra resist, which translates into lifetime against decay, use a fluorinated plastic like Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF.) PVDF is used on the roofs of some of the tallest buildings in the world.

High-performance plastics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_plastics

Plastics chemical resistance comparison: https://www.curbellplastics.com/Research-Solutions/Chemical-...

PVDF Foam: https://www.zotefoams.com/product/zotek/zotek-f-lightweight-...

Polypropylene: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polypropylene

HDPE: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-density_polyethylene

PVDF: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyvinylidene_fluoride

"Kaizen" foam is just polyethylene foam. It's often used as packaging for furniture and electronics. I save the more useful sheets of it for things like this. If you have a reuse or surplus store near you they sometimes sell PE foam.

I'm waiting for more shiny new Cisco kit to arrive so I can get a few decent-sized blocks of it to cut up and glue in my camera case.

> “ If you're like me, you have mild OCD and like to keep things clean and organized.”

As someone with OCD - yeah, no thanks, not gonna read the rest.

Why not?

Likely because that's not what OCD actually is, and it's often a little offensive for those who actually suffer from it to have the need to keep things organised described as "mild OCD".

That would be my guess though, based on what someone close to me who does have OCD has explained.

Precisely

Is calling it "shadow foam" just an escaped brand name, or is there more etymology behind it?

Nothing we use in military aviation is branded like that; we just use layered foam. As I understand it it's just that you do light on dark so it looks like shadows.

It may be a reference to "shadow boards" which is another, similar technique used mostly for wall mounted tool storage. It's basically pegboard with a silhouette (or "shadow") of each tool painted on.

I've done this with PE foam I cut and glued together, and it was maybe half the price of the "real" kaizen foam. Given how time intensive it is, I will just get the kaizen foam next time.

Cutting foam dulls knifes and razors very quickly.

For one drawer no problem. For more it can get expensive if you keep buying box cutters.

Crafters and cosplay ppl I've seen buy boxes of straight razor blades, sharpen their box cutter on a whetstone, or us an electric turkey Carver.

You can also buy inexpensive blade tips for wood burning tools and soldering irons that very easily cut certain types of foam, if you have a well ventilated space to do it.

Or if you have access to a laser cutter, they're pretty ideal for this.

Yes, but then

> expensive branded, color-coordinated, laser-cut foam is to make the purchaser feel like James Bond.

so be sure to either:

color-uncordinate the foam, or

practice your english accent

No foam in Little Nellie, though, only straps:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4JsmpdPAtw

Where I am, I pay about $0.50 for a snap knife blade and the minimum wage is $15.65.

At the risk of sounding negative, if the cost of razor blades is a factor in French fitting some drawers, you've got bigger problems.

This B&D electric knife can be used to cut foam, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01K1JJAI2/

TIL about Kaizen foam. Sure, I saw it before but I had no clue of its name. Thanks.

I don't see order, I just see inflexibility.

To me this is like zip-tieing every inch of your cables into wonderful neatness.

The very next hour after completing that jewel of order I need to add/remove/change something.

I agree. Plus the time spent doing this, is time not spent doing actual things.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hold up. You're saying you don't spend at least 50% of your time building tools so that you are better prepared to spend the other 50% doing actual things?

I know no other existense.

It's more applicable to stable, repeated workflows with varying staff, e.g. on a factory floor.

This is why you use Velcro (other brands of hook and loop fastening are available) ties instead.

This is why you cable tie every inch into precise neatness as the absolute last stage before the cabinet is closed up and shipped.

I also didn't mean special cases where it's simply not optional and required for vibration or airflow for example. Wiring harnesses inside of machines and finished products do not need to be reconfigured during normal use, and do need to be fully secured.

And a server rack even though it needs to change once in a while, also needs all the air it can get.

I guess I should have cluttered up the observation with other junk besides the essence, to give examples like your desk or your guitar amps or your random kitchen appliances.

Home theater is in a grey area where neatness matters enough to rob from flexibility.

I think my comment already implies that I consider ziptying everything a bad thing and do not recommend it or do it.

The point was the comparison. Sillohette cutouts are not reconfigurable like velcro. They are easy to create, and then only changed by destroying, discarding, and creating again.

This is what makes a wall of French cleats in your workshop a gem!

Now if you have sets of tools, this makes sense. At the first picture, I almost closed the thread. Bundles of Allen wrenches? Too neat. This doesn't apply to my life. But other contributors to the thread would put less strict/bundled sets into place in drawers, and I could appreciate that.

I think of how automotive, etc. tools of mine are in a mix of a 4-drawer unit, a portable all-in-one kit, and hopefully nowhere else (but that's not the real world.) But the 4-drawer units, while somewhat "organized", could benefit from this. As long as there's some room for adjustment later...

This. Order but reconfigurable order.

> looking for the 10mm.

The only size wrenches and sockets I can never find.

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