document_title: Lean manufacturing

question_text: the american version of lean production has been called

question_tokens: the american version of lean production has been called

text: Lean manufacturing

text: Overview[edit]

text: Lean principles are derived from the Japanese manufacturing industry. The term was first coined by John Krafcik in his 1988 article, "Triumph of the Lean Production System", based on his master's thesis at the MIT Sloan School of Management.[4] Krafcik had been a quality engineer in the Toyota-GM NUMMI joint venture in California before joining MIT for MBA studies. Krafcik's research was continued by the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP) at MIT, which produced the international best-selling book co-authored by James P. Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos called The Machine That Changed the World.[1] A complete historical account of the IMVP and how the term "lean" was coined is given by Holweg (2007).[2]

text: For many, lean is the set of "tools" that assist in the identification and steady elimination of waste. As waste is eliminated quality improves while production time and cost are reduced. A non exhaustive list of such tools would include: SMED, value stream mapping, Five S, Kanban (pull systems), poka-yoke (error-proofing), total productive maintenance, elimination of time batching, mixed model processing, rank order clustering, single point scheduling, redesigning working cells, multi-process handling and control charts (for checking mura).

text: There is a second approach to lean manufacturing, which is promoted by Toyota, called The Toyota Way, in which the focus is upon improving the "flow" or smoothness of work, thereby steadily eliminating mura ("unevenness") through the system and not upon 'waste reduction' per se. Techniques to improve flow include production leveling, "pull" production (by means of kanban) and the Heijunka box. This is a fundamentally different approach from most improvement methodologies, and requires considerably more persistence than basic application of the tools, which may partially account for its lack of popularity.[5]

text: The difference between these two approaches is not the goal itself, but rather the prime approach to achieving it. The implementation of smooth flow exposes quality problems that already existed, and thus waste reduction naturally happens as a consequence. The advantage claimed for this approach is that it naturally takes a system-wide perspective, whereas a waste focus sometimes wrongly assumes this perspective.

text: Both lean and TPS can be seen as a loosely connected set of potentially competing principles whose goal is cost reduction by the elimination of waste.[6] These principles include: pull processing, perfect first-time quality, waste minimization, continuous improvement, flexibility, building and maintaining a long term relationship with suppliers, autonomation, load leveling and production flow and visual control. The disconnected nature of some of these principles perhaps springs from the fact that the TPS has grown pragmatically since 1948 as it responded to the problems it saw within its own production facilities. Thus what one sees today is the result of a 'need' driven learning to improve where each step has built on previous ideas and not something based upon a theoretical framework.

text: Toyota's view is that the main method of lean is not the tools, but the reduction of three types of waste: muda (non-value-adding work), muri (overburden), and mura (unevenness), to expose problems systematically and to use the tools where the ideal cannot be achieved. From this perspective, the tools are workarounds adapted to different situations, which explains any apparent incoherence of the principles above.[citation needed]

text: Also known as the flexible mass production, the TPS has two pillar concepts: Just-in-time (JIT) or "flow", and "autonomation" (smart automation).[7][full citation needed] Adherents of the Toyota approach would say that the smooth flowing delivery of value achieves all the other improvements as side-effects. If production flows perfectly (meaning it is both "pull" and with no interruptions) then there is no inventory; if customer valued features are the only ones produced, then product design is simplified and effort is only expended on features the customer values. The other of the two TPS pillars is the very human aspect of autonomation, whereby automation is achieved with a human touch.[8][full citation needed] In this instance, the "human touch" means to automate so that the machines/systems are designed to aid humans in focusing on what the humans do best.

text: Lean implementation emphasizes the importance of optimizing work flow through strategic operational procedures while minimizing waste and being adaptable. Flexibility is required to allow production leveling (Heijunka) using tools such as SMED, but have their analogues in other processes such as research and development (R&D). However, adaptability is often constrained, and therefore may not require significant investment. More importantly, all of these concepts have to be acknowledged by employees who develop the products and initiate processes that deliver value. The cultural and managerial aspects of lean are arguably more important than the actual tools or methodologies of production itself. There are many examples of lean tool implementation without sustained benefit, and these are often blamed on weak understanding of lean throughout the whole organization.

text: Lean aims to enhance productivity by simplifying the operational structure enough to understand, perform and manage the work environment. To achieve these three goals simultaneously, one of Toyota's mentoring methodologies (loosely called Senpai and Kohai which is Japanese for senior and junior), can be used to foster lean thinking throughout the organizational structure from the ground up. The closest equivalent to Toyota's mentoring process is the concept of "Lean Sensei," which encourages companies, organizations, and teams to seek third-party experts that can provide advice and coaching.[9]

text: In 1999, Spear and Bowen[10] identified four rules which characterize the "Toyota DNA":

text:
All work shall be highly specified as to content, sequence, timing, and outcome.
Every customer-supplier connection must be direct, and there must be an unambiguous yes or no way to send requests and receive responses.
The pathway for every product and service must be simple and direct.
Any improvement must be made in accordance with the scientific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level in the organization.

text: History[edit]

text: Pre-20th century[edit]

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text: Most of the basic goals of lean manufacturing and waste reduction were derived from Benjamin Franklin through documented examples. Poor Richard's Almanack says of wasted time, "He that idly loses 5s. worth of time, loses 5s., and might as prudently throw 5s. into the river." He added that avoiding unnecessary costs could be more profitable than increasing sales: "A penny saved is two pence clear. A pin a-day is a groat a-year. Save and have."

text: Again Franklin's The Way to Wealth says the following about carrying unnecessary inventory. "You call them goods; but, if you do not take care, they will prove evils to some of you. You expect they will be sold cheap, and, perhaps, they may [be bought] for less than they cost; but, if you have no occasion for them, they must be dear to you. Remember what Poor Richard says, 'Buy what thou hast no need of, and ere long thou shalt sell thy necessaries.' In another place he says, 'Many have been ruined by buying good penny worths'." Henry Ford cited Franklin as a major influence on his own business practices, which included Just-in-time manufacturing.

text: The accumulation of waste and energy within the work environment was noticed by motion efficiency expert Frank Gilbreth, who witnessed the inefficient practices of masons who often bend over to gather bricks from the ground. The introduction of a non-stooping scaffold, which delivered the bricks at waist level, allowed masons to work about three times as quickly, and with the least amount of effort.

text: 20th century[edit]

text: Frederick Winslow Taylor, the father of scientific management, introduced what are now called standardization and best practice deployment. In Principles of Scientific Management, (1911), Taylor said: "And whenever a workman proposes an improvement, it should be the policy of the management to make a careful analysis of the new method, and if necessary conduct a series of experiments to determine accurately the relative merit of the new suggestion and of the old standard. And whenever the new method is found to be markedly superior to the old, it should be adopted as the standard for the whole establishment."

text: Taylor also warned explicitly against cutting piece rates (or, by implication, cutting wages or discharging workers) when efficiency improvements reduce the need for raw labor: "...after a workman has had the price per piece of the work he is doing lowered two or three times as a result of his having worked harder and increased his output, he is likely entirely to lose sight of his employer's side of the case and become imbued with a grim determination to have no more cuts if soldiering [marking time, just doing what he is told] can prevent it."

text: Shigeo Shingo, the best-known exponent of single minute exchange of die and error-proofing or poka-yoke, cites Principles of Scientific Management as his inspiration.[11][need quotation to verify]

text: American industrialists recognized the threat of cheap offshore labor to American workers during the 1910s, and explicitly stated the goal of what is now called lean manufacturing as a countermeasure. Henry Towne, past President of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, wrote in the Foreword to Frederick Winslow Taylor's Shop Management (1911), "We are justly proud of the high wage rates which prevail throughout our country, and jealous of any interference with them by the products of the cheaper labor of other countries. To maintain this condition, to strengthen our control of home markets, and, above all, to broaden our opportunities in foreign markets where we must compete with the products of other industrial nations, we should welcome and encourage every influence tending to increase the efficiency of our productive processes."[citation needed]

text: Henry Ford[edit]

text: Henry Ford initially ignored the impact of waste accumulation while developing his mass assembly manufacturing system. Charles Buxton Going wrote in 1915:

text: Ford, in My Life and Work (1922),[13] provided a single-paragraph description that encompasses the entire concept of waste:

text: Poor arrangement of the workplace—a major focus of the modern kaizen—and doing a job inefficiently out of habit—are major forms of waste even in modern workplaces.

text: Ford also pointed out how easy it was to overlook material waste. A former employee, Harry Bennett, wrote:

text: In other words, Ford saw the rust and realized that the steel plant was not recovering all of the iron.

text: Ford's early success, however, was not sustainable. As James P. Womack and Daniel Jones pointed out in "Lean Thinking", what Ford accomplished represented the "special case" rather than a robust lean solution.[9][page needed] The major challenge that Ford faced was that his methods were built for a steady-state environment, rather than for the dynamic conditions firms increasingly face today.[15] Although his rigid, top-down controls made it possible to hold variation in work activities down to very low levels, his approach did not respond well to uncertain, dynamic business conditions; they responded particularly badly to the need for new product innovation. This was made clear by Ford's precipitous decline when the company was forced to finally introduce a follow-on to the Model T.

text: Design for Manufacture (DFM) is a concept derived from Ford which emphasizes the importance of standardizing individual parts as well as eliminating redundant components in My Life and Work.[citation needed] This standardization was central to Ford's concept of mass production, and the manufacturing "tolerances", or upper and lower dimensional limits that ensured interchangeability of parts became widely applied across manufacturing. Decades later, the renowned Japanese quality guru, Genichi Taguchi, demonstrated that this "goal post" method of measuring was inadequate. He showed that "loss" in capabilities did not begin only after exceeding these tolerances, but increased as described by the Taguchi Loss Function at any condition exceeding the nominal condition. This became an important part of W. Edwards Deming's quality movement of the 1980s, later helping to develop improved understanding of key areas of focus such as cycle time variation in improving manufacturing quality and efficiencies in aerospace and other industries.

text: While Ford is renowned for his production line, it is often not recognized how much effort he put into removing the fitters' work to make the production line possible. Previous to the use, Ford's car's components were fitted and reshaped by a skilled engineer at the point of use, so that they would connect properly. By enforcing very strict specification and quality criteria on component manufacture, he eliminated this work almost entirely, reducing manufacturing effort by between 60-90%.[16] However, Ford's mass production system failed to incorporate the notion of "pull production" and thus often suffered from overproduction.[citation needed]

text: Toyota develops TPS[edit]

text: Toyota's development of ideas that later became lean may have started at the turn of the 20th century with Sakichi Toyoda, in a textile factory with looms that stopped themselves when a thread broke. This became the seed of autonomation and Jidoka. Toyota's journey with just-in-time (JIT) may have started back in 1934 when it moved from textiles to produce its first car. Kiichiro Toyoda, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, directed the engine casting work and discovered many problems in their manufacturing. He decided he must stop the repairing of poor quality by intense study of each stage of the process. In 1936, when Toyota won its first truck contract with the Japanese government, his processes hit new problems and he developed the "Kaizen" improvement teams.

text: Levels of demand in the Post War economy of Japan were low and the focus of mass production on lowest cost per item via economies of scale therefore had little application. Having visited and seen supermarkets in the USA, Taiichi Ohno recognised the scheduling of work should not be driven by sales or production targets but by actual sales. Given the financial situation during this period, over-production had to be avoided and thus the notion of Pull (build to order rather than target driven Push) came to underpin production scheduling.

text: It was with Taiichi Ohno at Toyota that these themes came together. He built on the already existing internal schools of thought and spread their breadth and use into what has now become the Toyota Production System (TPS). It is principally from the TPS (which was widely referred to in the 1980s as just-in-time manufacturing), but now including many other sources, that lean production is developing. Norman Bodek wrote the following in his foreword to a reprint of Ford's Today and Tomorrow:[citation needed]

text: I was first introduced to the concepts of just-in-time (JIT) and the Toyota production system in 1980. Subsequently I had the opportunity to witness its actual application at Toyota on one of our numerous Japanese study missions. There I met Mr. Taiichi Ohno, the system's creator. When bombarded with questions from our group on what inspired his thinking, he just laughed and said he learned it all from Henry Ford's book." The scale, rigor and continuous learning aspects of TPS have made it a core concept of lean.

text: Types of waste[edit]

text: Although the elimination of waste may seem like a simple and clear subject, it is noticeable that waste is often very conservatively identified. This then hugely reduces the potential of such an aim. The elimination of waste is the goal of lean, and Toyota defined three broad types of waste: muda, muri and mura; for many lean implementations this list shrinks to the first waste type only with reduced corresponding benefits.

text: To illustrate the state of this thinking Shigeo Shingo observed that only the last turn of a bolt tightens it—the rest is just movement. This ever finer clarification of waste is key to establishing distinctions between value-adding activity, waste and non-value-adding work.[17][need quotation to verify] Non-value adding work is waste that must be done under the present work conditions. One key is to measure, or estimate, the size of these wastes, to demonstrate the effect of the changes achieved and therefore the movement toward the goal.

text: The "flow" (or smoothness) based approach aims to achieve JIT, by removing the variation caused by work scheduling and thereby provide a driver, rationale or target and priorities for implementation, using a variety of techniques. The effort to achieve JIT exposes many quality problems that are hidden by buffer stocks; by forcing smooth flow of only value-adding steps, these problems become visible and must be dealt with explicitly.

text: Muri is all the unreasonable work that management imposes on workers and machines because of poor organization, such as carrying heavy weights, moving things around, dangerous tasks, even working significantly faster than usual. It is pushing a person or a machine beyond its natural limits. This may simply be asking a greater level of performance from a process than it can handle without taking shortcuts and informally modifying decision criteria. Unreasonable work is almost always a cause of multiple variations.

text: To link these three concepts is simple in TPS and thus lean. Firstly, muri focuses on the preparation and planning of the process, or what work can be avoided proactively by design. Next, mura then focuses on how the work design is implemented and the elimination of fluctuation at the scheduling or operations level, such as quality and volume. Muda is then discovered after the process is in place and is dealt with reactively. It is seen through variation in output. It is the role of management to examine the muda, in the processes and eliminate the deeper causes by considering the connections to the muri and mura of the system. The muda and mura inconsistencies must be fed back to the muri, or planning, stage for the next project.

text: A typical example of the interplay of these wastes is the corporate behaviour of "making the numbers" as the end of a reporting period approaches. Demand is raised to 'make plan,' increasing (mura), when the "numbers" are low, which causes production to try to squeeze extra capacity from the process, which causes routines and standards to be modified or stretched. This stretch and improvisation leads to muri-style waste, which leads to downtime, mistakes and back flows, and waiting, thus the muda of waiting, correction and movement.

text: The original seven mudas are:[citation needed]

text:
Transport (moving products that are not actually required to perform the processing)
Inventory (all components, work in process, and finished product not being processed)
Motion (people or equipment moving or walking more than is required to perform the processing)
Waiting (waiting for the next production step, interruptions of production during shift change)
Overproduction (production ahead of demand)
Over Processing (resulting from poor tool or product design creating activity)
Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects)[18][need quotation to verify]

text: Eventually, an eighth "muda" was defined by Womack et al. (2003); it was described as manufacturing goods or services that do not meet customer demand or specifications. Many others have added the "waste of unused human talent" to the original seven wastes. For example, six sigma includes the waste of Skills, referred to as "under-utilizing capabilities and delegating tasks with inadequate training". Other additional wastes added were for example "space". These wastes were not originally a part of the seven deadly wastes defined by Taiichi Ohno in TPS, but were found to be useful additions in practice. In 1999 Geoffrey Mika in his book, "Kaizen Event Implementation Manual" added three more forms of waste that are now universally accepted; The waste associated with working to the wrong metrics or no metrics, the waste associated with not utilizing a complete worker by not allowing them to contribute ideas and suggestions and be part of Participative Management, and lastly the waste attributable to improper use of computers; not having the proper software, training on use and time spent surfing, playing games or just wasting time. For a complete listing of the "old" and "new" wastes see Bicheno and Holweg (2009)[19]

text: The identification of non-value-adding work, as distinct from wasted work, is critical to identifying the assumptions behind the current work process and to challenging them in due course.[20] Breakthroughs in SMED and other process changing techniques rely upon clear identification of where untapped opportunities may lie if the processing assumptions are challenged.[citation needed]

text: Lean implementation develops from TPS[edit]

text: Lean leadership[edit]

text: The role of the leaders within the organization is the fundamental element of sustaining the progress of lean thinking. Experienced kaizen members at Toyota, for example, often bring up the concepts of Senpai, Kohai, and Sensei, because they strongly feel that transferring of Toyota culture down and across Toyota can only happen when more experienced Toyota Sensei continuously coach and guide the less experienced lean champions.

text: One of the dislocative effects of lean is in the area of key performance indicators (KPI). The KPIs by which a plant/facility are judged will often be driving behaviour, because the KPIs themselves assume a particular approach to the work being done. This can be an issue where, for example a truly lean, Fixed Repeating Schedule (FRS) and JIT approach is adopted, because these KPIs will no longer reflect performance, as the assumptions on which they are based become invalid. It is a key leadership challenge to manage the impact of this KPI chaos within the organization.

text: Similarly, commonly used accounting systems developed to support mass production are no longer appropriate for companies pursuing lean. Lean accounting provides truly lean approaches to business management and financial reporting.

text: After formulating the guiding principles of its lean manufacturing approach in the Toyota Production System (TPS), Toyota formalized in 2001 the basis of its lean management: the key managerial values and attitudes needed to sustain continuous improvement in the long run. These core management principles are articulated around the twin pillars of Continuous Improvement (relentless elimination of waste) and Respect for People (engagement in long term relationships based on continuous improvement and mutual trust).

text: This formalization stems from problem solving. As Toyota expanded beyond its home base for the past 20 years, it hit the same problems in getting TPS properly applied that other western companies have had in copying TPS. Like any other problem, it has been working on trying a series of countermeasures to solve this particular concern. These countermeasures have focused on culture: how people behave, which is the most difficult challenge of all. Without the proper behavioral principles and values, TPS can be totally misapplied and fail to deliver results. As with TPS, the values had originally been passed down in a master-disciple manner, from boss to subordinate, without any written statement on the way. Just as with TPS, it was internally argued that formalizing the values would stifle them and lead to further misunderstanding. However, as Toyota veterans eventually wrote down the basic principles of TPS, Toyota set to put the Toyota Way into writing to educate new joiners.

text: Continuous Improvement breaks down into three basic principles:

text:
Challenge: Having a long term vision of the challenges one needs to face to realize one's ambition (what we need to learn rather than what we want to do and then having the spirit to face that challenge). To do so, we have to challenge ourselves every day to see if we are achieving our goals.
Kaizen: Good enough never is, no process can ever be thought perfect, so operations must be improved continuously, striving for innovation and evolution.
Genchi Genbutsu: Going to the source to see the facts for oneself and make the right decisions, create consensus, and make sure goals are attained at the best possible speed.

text: Respect For People is less known outside of Toyota, and essentially involves two defining principles:

text:
Respect: Taking every stakeholders' problems seriously, and making every effort to build mutual trust. Taking responsibility for other people reaching their objectives.
Teamwork: This is about developing individuals through team problem-solving. The idea is to develop and engage people through their contribution to team performance. Shop floor teams, the whole site as team, and team Toyota at the outset.

text: Differences from TPS[edit]

text: While lean is seen by many as a generalization of the Toyota Production System into other industries and contexts, there are some acknowledged differences that seem to have developed in implementation:[citation needed]

text:
Seeking profit is a relentless focus for Toyota exemplified by the profit maximization principle (Price – Cost = Profit) and the need, therefore, to practice systematic cost reduction (through TPS or otherwise) to realize benefit.[21] Lean implementations can tend to de-emphasise this key measure and thus become fixated with the implementation of improvement concepts of "flow" or "pull". However, the emergence of the "value curve analysis" promises to directly tie lean improvements to bottom-line performance measurements.
Tool orientation is a tendency in many programs to elevate mere tools (standardized work, value stream mapping, visual control, etc.) to an unhealthy status beyond their pragmatic intent. The tools are just different ways to work around certain types of problems but they do not solve them for you or always highlight the underlying cause of many types of problems. The tools employed at Toyota are often used to expose particular problems that are then dealt with, as each tool's limitations or blindspots are perhaps better understood. So, for example, Value Stream Mapping focuses upon material and information flow problems (a title built into the Toyota title for this activity) but is not strong on Metrics, Man or Method. Internally they well know the limits of the tool and understood that it was never intended as the best way to see and analyze every waste or every problem related to quality, downtime, personnel development, cross training related issues, capacity bottlenecks, or anything to do with profits, safety, metrics or morale, etc. No one tool can do all of that. For surfacing these issues other tools are much more widely and effectively used.
Management technique rather than change agents has been a principle in Toyota from the early 1950s when they started emphasizing the development of the production manager's and supervisors' skills set in guiding natural work teams and did not rely upon staff-level change agents to drive improvements. This can manifest itself as a "Push" implementation of lean rather than "Pull" by the team itself. This area of skills development is not that of the change agent specialist, but that of the natural operations work team leader. Although less prestigious than the TPS specialists, development of work team supervisors in Toyota is considered an equally, if not more important, topic merely because there are tens of thousands of these individuals. Specifically, it is these manufacturing leaders that are the main focus of training efforts in Toyota since they lead the daily work areas, and they directly and dramatically affect quality, cost, productivity, safety, and morale of the team environment. In many companies implementing lean the reverse set of priorities is true. Emphasis is put on developing the specialist, while the supervisor skill level is expected to somehow develop over time on its own.
Lack of understanding is one of the key reasons that a large share of lean manufacturing projects in the West fail to bring any benefit. In Factory Physics, Hopp and Spearman describe this as romantic JIT, where the belief in the methods is more important than the actual understanding and results. In this aspect, lean manufacturing is more of a religion than a science. Others have compared it to cargo cult science.

text: Lean services[edit]

text: Lean principles have been successfully applied to various sectors and services, such as call centers and healthcare. In the former, lean's waste reduction practices have been used to reduce handle time, within and between agent variation, accent barriers, as well as attain near perfect process adherence.[22][need quotation to verify] In the latter, several hospitals have adopted the idea of lean hospital, a concept that priorizes the patient, thus increasing the employee commitment and motivation, as well as boosting medical quality and cost effectiveness.[23][need quotation to verify]

text: Lean principles also have applications to software development and maintenance as well as other sectors of information technology (IT).[24] More generally, the use of lean in information technology has become known as Lean IT.[citation needed] Lean methods are also applicable to the public sector, but most results have been achieved using a much more restricted range of techniques than lean provides.[25][page needed]

text: The challenge in moving lean to services is the lack of widely available reference implementations to allow people to see how directly applying lean manufacturing tools and practices can work and the impact it does have. This makes it more difficult to build the level of belief seen as necessary for strong implementation. However, some research does relate widely recognized examples of success in retail and even airlines to the underlying principles of lean.[15] Despite this, it remains the case that the direct manufacturing examples of 'techniques' or 'tools' need to be better 'translated' into a service context to support the more prominent approaches of implementation, which has not yet received the level of work or publicity that would give starting points for implementors. The upshot of this is that each implementation often 'feels its way' along as must the early industrial engineering practices of Toyota. This places huge importance upon sponsorship to encourage and protect these experimental developments.[citation needed]

text: Lean management is nowadays implemented also in non-manufacturing processes and administrative processes. In non-manufacturing processes is still huge potential for optimization and efficiency increase.[26]

text: Goals and strategy[edit]

text: The espoused goals of lean manufacturing systems differ between various authors. While some maintain an internal focus, e.g. to increase profit for the organization,[27] others claim that improvements should be done for the sake of the customer.[28]

text: Some commonly mentioned goals are:[citation needed]

text:
Improve quality: To stay competitive in today's marketplace, a company must understand its customers' wants and needs and design processes to meet their expectations and requirements.
Eliminate waste: Waste is any activity that consumes time, resources, or space but does not add any value to the product or service.
Reduce time: Reducing the time it takes to finish an activity from start to finish is one of the most effective ways to eliminate waste and lower costs.
Reduce total costs: To minimize cost, a company must produce only to customer demand. Overproduction increases a company’s inventory costs because of storage needs.

text: The strategic elements of lean can be quite complex, and comprise multiple elements. Four different notions of lean have been identified:[29]

text:
Lean as a fixed state or goal (being lean)
Lean as a continuous change process (becoming lean)
Lean as a set of tools or methods (doing lean/toolbox lean)
Lean as a philosophy (lean thinking)

text: Examples: Lean strategy in the global supply chain, and its crisis[edit]

text: Strategy[edit]

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text: Lean production has been adopted into other industries to promote productivity and efficiency in an ever changing market. In global supply chain and outsource scale, Information Technology is necessary and can deal with most of hard lean practices to synchronise pull system in supply chains and value system. The manufacturing industry can renew and change strategy of production just in time.

text: The supply chains take changes in deploying second factory or warehouse near their major markets in order to react consumers’ need promptly instead of investing manufacturing factories on the lost-cost countries. For instance, Dell sells computers directly from their website, cutting franchised dealers out of their supply chains. Then, the firm use outsourced partners to produce its components, deliver components to their assembly plants on these main markets around the world, like America and China.

text: Zara made decision of speeding their fashion to the consumers market by fast-producing cloths within five weeks with their local partners in Spain and never involved in mass production to pursue new styles and keep products fresh.

text: The other way to avoid market risk and control the supply efficiently is to cut down in stock. P&G has done the goal to co-operate with Walmart and other wholesales companies by building the response system of stocks directly to the suppliers companies.[30][need quotation to verify]

text: With the improvement of global scale supply chains, firms apply lean practices (JIT, supplier partnership, and customer involvement) built between global firms and suppliers intensively to connect with consumers markets efficiently.

text: Crisis[edit]

text: After years of success of Toyota’s Lean Production, the consolidation of supply chain networks has brought Toyota to the position of being the world's biggest carmaker in the rapid expansion. In 2010, the crisis of safety-related problems in Toyota made other carmakers that duplicated Toyota’s supply chain system wary that the same recall issue might happen to them.

text: James Womack had warned Toyota that cooperating with single outsourced suppliers might bring unexpected problems.[31] Indeed, the crisis cost a great fortune and left Toyota thinking whether the JIT practice has problems about outsourced suppliers without enough experience and senior engineers could not achieve the monitoring job close to their suppliers out of Japan. That is proven as the economy of scale becomes global, the soft-learn practices become more important in their outsourced suppliers, if they could keep good Sensei relationship with their partners and constantly modify production process to perfection. Otherwise, Toyota begins to consider whether to have more choices of suppliers of producing the same component, it might bring more safety on risk-control and reduce the huge cost that might happen in the future.

text: The appliance of JIT in supply chain system is the key issue of Lean implementation in global scale. How do the supply partners avoid causing production flow? Global firms should make more suppliers who can compete with each other in order to get the best quality and lower the risk of production flow at the same time.[citation needed]

text: Steps to achieve lean systems[edit]

text: The following steps should be implemented to create the ideal lean manufacturing system:[32]

text:
Design a simple manufacturing system
Recognize that there is always room for improvement
Continuously improve the lean manufacturing system design

text: Design a simple manufacturing system[edit]

text: A fundamental principle of lean manufacturing is demand-based flow manufacturing. In this type of production setting, inventory is only pulled through each production center when it is needed to meet a customer's order. The benefits of this goal include:[32]

text:
Decreased cycle time
Less inventory
Increased productivity
Increased capital equipment utilization

text: Continuous improvement[edit]

text: A continuous improvement mindset is essential to reach the company's goals. The term "continuous improvement" means incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace functionality, customer service, or product performance. Lean is founded on the concept of continuous and incremental improvements on product and process while eliminating redundant activities. "The value of adding activities are simply only those things the customer is willing to pay for, everything else is waste, and should be eliminated, simplified, reduced, or integrated" (Rizzardo, 2003).[full citation needed] Improving the flow of material through new ideal system layouts at the customer's required rate would reduce waste in material movement and inventory.[32][need quotation to verify]

text: Measure[edit]

text: Overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) is a set of performance metrics that fit well in a lean environment. Also, PMTS, methods-time measurement, cost analysis and perhaps time study can be used to evaluate the wastes and IT effectiveness in the operational processes. For example, Jun-Ing Ker and Yichuan Wang analyze two prescribing technologies, namely no carbon required (NCR) and digital scanning technologies to quantify the advantages of the medication ordering, transcribing, and dispensing process in a multi-hospital health system. With comparison between these two technologies, the statistical analysis results show a significant reduction on process times by adopting digital scanning technology. The results indicated a reduction of 54.5% in queue time, 32.4% in order entry time, 76.9% in outgoing delay time, and 67.7% in outgoing transit time with the use of digital scanning technology.[33]

text: Criticism[edit]

text: One criticism of lean is that its practitioners may focus on tools and methodologies rather than on the philosophy and culture of lean. Consequently, adequate management is needed in order to avoid failed implementation of lean methodologies.[34] Another pitfall is that management decides what solution to use without understanding the true problem and without consulting shop floor personnel. As a result, lean implementations often look good to the manager but fail to improve the situation.[34]

text: In addition, many of the popular lean initiatives, coming from the TPS, are solutions to specific problems that Toyota was facing. Toyota, having an undesired current condition, determined what the end state would look like. Through much study, the gap was closed, which resulted in many of the tools in place today. Often, when a tool is implemented outside of TPS, a company believes that the solution lay specifically within one of the popular lean initiatives. The tools which were the solution to a specific problem for a specific company may not be able to be applied in exactly the same manner as designed. Thus, the solution does not fit the problem and a temporary solution is created vs. the actual root cause.[35]

text: The lean philosophy aims to reduce costs while optimizing and improving performance. Value stream mapping (VSM) and 5S are the most common approaches companies take on their first steps towards making their organisation leaner. Lean actions can be focused on the specific logistics processes, or cover the entire supply chain. For example, you might start from analysis of SKUs, using several days to identify and draw each SKUs path, evaluating all the participants from material suppliers to the consumer. Conducting a gap analysis determines the company's 'must take' steps to improve the value stream and achieve the objective. Based on that evaluation, the improvement group conducts the failure mode effects analysis (FMEA), in order to identify and prevent risk factors. It is crucial for front-line workers to be involved in VSM activities since they understood the process and can directly increase the efficiency. Although the impact may be small and limited for each lean activity, implementing a series small improvements incrementally along the supply chain can bring forth enhanced productivity.[36]

text: After adopting the lean approach, both managers and employees experience change. Therefore, decisive leaders are needed when starting on a lean journey. There are several requirements to control the lean journey. First and most importantly, experts recommend that the organization have its own lean plan, developed by the lean Leadership. In other words, the lean team provides suggestions for the leader who then makes the actual decisions about what to implement. Second, coaching is recommended when the organization starts off on its lean journey. They will impart their knowledge and skills to shopfloor staff and the lean implementation will be much more efficient. Third, the metrics or measurements used for measuring lean and improvements are extremely important. It will enable collection of the data required for informed decision-making by a leader. One cannot successfully implement lean without sufficient aptitude at measuring the process and outputs. To control and improve results going forward, one must see and measure, i.e. map, what is happening now.[37]

text: Lean manufacturing is different from lean enterprise. Recent research reports the existence of several lean manufacturing processes but of few lean enterprises.[38] One distinguishing feature opposes lean accounting and standard cost accounting. For standard cost accounting, SKUs are difficult to grasp. SKUs include too much hypothesis and variance, i.e., SKUs hold too much indeterminacy. Manufacturing may want to consider moving away from traditional accounting and adopting lean accounting. In using lean accounting, one expected gain is activity-based cost visibility, i.e., measuring the direct and indirect costs at each step of an activity rather than traditional cost accounting that limits itself to labor and supplies.[citation needed]


document_title: Alexander Ovechkin

question_text: who was the captain of the washington capitals before ovechkin

question_tokens: who was the captain of the washington capitals before ovechkin

root

text: Alexander Ovechkin

text: Playing career

text: Dynamo Moscow

text: Ovechkin began playing in the Russian Super League (RSL) in Dynamo Moscow at the age of 16. Making his professional debut in the 2001–02 season, he scored four points in 21 games. He would spend three seasons there prior to being drafted by the NHL, and he would rack up 36 goals and 32 assists in 152 career games.[4]

tag: p

text: The following off-season, Ovechkin was selected first overall in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft by the Washington Capitals. He had been projected as the first overall pick for nearly two years[5] and had earned comparisons to Mario Lemieux.[6] He was so highly regarded that the Florida Panthers attempted to draft him in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft in the ninth round, even though his birthday was two days after the cut-off (15 September 1985). Rick Dudley, the general manager of the Panthers, claimed the pick was legitimate, claiming that Ovechkin was old enough with leap years taken into consideration.[6]

text: Due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Ovechkin remained with Dynamo for one more season. He recorded 27 points in 37 games in 2004–05, while missing nearly two months of play because of a shoulder injury sustained in the gold medal game against Canada in the 2005 World Junior Championships. In the playoffs, he helped Dynamo win the RSL title.

text: With the threat of the lockout cancelling another NHL season, Ovechkin signed a contract with rival Russian team Avangard Omsk.  In order to maintain his eligibility for the NHL in the event that the lockout ended, the contract contained an out clause with a 20 July 2005, deadline. Although a new NHL collective bargaining agreement (CBA) had not yet been reached between players and owners, Ovechkin decided to opt out and signed with the Capitals on 5 August 2005. The deal was a three-year, entry-level contract worth the rookie maximum of $984,200 per season with performance-based bonuses to inflate his annual salary to as much as $3.9 million.[7]

text: Washington Capitals

text: Two days after signing, the lockout ended with a new CBA. Ovechkin played his first game with the Capitals on 5 October 2005, scoring two goals against goalie Pascal Leclaire in a 3–2 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets.[8] On 13 January 2006, in Anaheim, Ovechkin scored his first career hat trick against Jean-Sébastien Giguère of the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim to help Washington win the game.[9] Three days later, on 16 January, he scored a goal that veteran hockey reporter Bill Clement called "one of the greatest goals of all time."[10] Knocked down by Phoenix Coyotes defenseman Paul Mara and sliding on his back facing away from the net, Ovechkin was able to hook the puck with one hand on his stick and slide it into the net past goalie Brian Boucher for his second goal of the night. It became referred to as "The Goal."[11]Auston Matthews, a future Toronto Maple Leafs first overall selection, was in attendance during the game; he said in an interview during the 2016–17 season that it was the best goal he ever saw live.[12] On 1 February, Ovechkin was named NHL Rookie of the Month for January 2006 as well as being named Offensive Player of the Month, becoming only the third player in NHL history to earn both honors simultaneously.[13]

text: Ovechkin finished the 2005–06 season leading all NHL rookies in goals, points, power-play goals and shots. He finished third overall in the NHL in scoring with 106 points and tied for third in goals with 52. His 425 shots led the league, set an NHL rookie record,[14] and was the fourth-highest total in NHL history. Ovechkin's point total was the second-best in Washington Capitals history and his goals total tied for third in franchise history. He was also named to the NHL First All-Star Team, the first rookie to receive the honor in 15 years.[15] After the season ended, Ovechkin received the Calder Memorial Trophy, awarded to the NHL's best rookie.[16]

text: He was also a finalist in his rookie season for the Lester B. Pearson Award.[17] EA Sports made him one of the cover athletes for NHL 07. The following season, Ovechkin appeared in his first NHL All-Star Game in Dallas on 24 January 2007. He completed his second NHL season with 46 goals and 92 points.

text: Playing in the final season of his rookie contract, in 2007–08, Ovechkin signed a 13-year contract extension worth $124 million with the Capitals on 10 January 2008. The contract, which averages $9.5 million per year, was the richest in NHL history. Working without an agent, Ovechkin negotiated with Capitals owner Ted Leonsis and former general manager George McPhee.[18]

text: Late in the season, on 3 March 2008,[19] Ovechkin notched his 50th, 51st and 52nd goals of the campaign for his fourth career NHL hat trick and to hit the 50-goal mark for the second time in his career. Later that month, on 21 March, Ovechkin scored his 59th and 60th goals of the season against the Atlanta Thrashers, becoming the first NHL player to score 60 goals in a season since Mario Lemieux and Jaromír Jágr in 1995–96[20] and 19th player overall.[21] Four days later, on 25 March, Ovechkin scored his 61st goal of the season to break the Washington Capitals' team record for goals in a single season previously held by Dennis Maruk.[22] He also went on to break Luc Robitaille's record for most goals by a left winger in one season on 3 April, by scoring two goals for his 64th and 65th of the season.[23] He also became the first NHL player to score at least 40 even-strength goals in one season since Pavel Bure in 1999–2000.[24]

text: Leading the league in, scoring with 65 goals and 112 points, Ovechkin captured both the Art Ross Trophy and the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy in 2007–08. It was the first time in 41 seasons that a left-winger led the NHL in points since Bobby Hull led the league with 97 points in 1965–66.[25]

text: Ovechkin helped lead a rejuvenated Capitals team back to the Stanley Cup playoffs with a stronger supporting cast that included countryman Alexander Semin, rookie center Nicklas Bäckström and defenseman Mike Green. He scored the game-winning goal in his NHL playoff debut with less than five minutes left in Game 1 against the Philadelphia Flyers.[26] He scored nine points in seven games against the Flyers as the Capitals were eliminated in the opening round.

text: In the off-season, Ovechkin was awarded the Lester B. Pearson Award as the top player voted by the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA) and the Hart Memorial Trophy as the league's MVP, becoming the first player in the history of the NHL to win all four major awards, including the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies.[27] Ovechkin was also awarded his third consecutive Kharlamov Trophy, named after Soviet hockey star Valeri Kharlamov and presented by Sovetsky Sport newspaper, as the best Russian NHL player as voted by other Russian NHL players.

text: In late October of the 2008–09 season, Ovechkin returned home to Moscow to visit his ailing grandfather, missing only the second game of his career up to that point, snapping a consecutive streak of 203 games played.[28] On 5 February 2009, Ovechkin scored his 200th goal, against the Los Angeles Kings, becoming only the fourth player in the NHL to reach the milestone in four seasons, joining Wayne Gretzky, Mike Bossy and Mario Lemieux.[29] On 19 March, he scored his 50th goal of the season, becoming the first Washington Capitals player to reach the 50-goal mark three times.[30] He finished the campaign with 56 goals to capture his second consecutive Rocket Richard Trophy, joining Jarome Iginla and Pavel Bure as the third player to win the award twice and the second player after Bure (2000 and 2001) to win the award in back-to-back seasons. With 110 points, he finished as runner-up to countryman Evgeni Malkin for the Art Ross.[31]

text: Ovechkin and the Capitals repeated as division champions en route to meeting the New York Rangers in the opening round. After advancing to the second round in seven games, Ovechkin notched his first NHL playoff hat trick on 4 May, in Game 2 against the Pittsburgh Penguins to help Washington to a 4–3 win. The Capitals were eventually defeated by Pittsburgh, the eventual Stanley Cup champions, in seven games. Ovechkin finished the 2009 playoffs with a post-season career-high 21 points in 14 games. He went on to win the Hart and Pearson trophies for the second consecutive year, becoming the seventeenth player to win the Hart multiple times.

text: Just over a month into the 2009–10 season, Ovechkin suffered an upper-body injury during a game against the Columbus Blue Jackets on 1 November 2009, after a collision with opposing forward Raffi Torres.[32] After returning, Ovechkin was suspended by the NHL on 1 December for two games (one for the action, and one for a second game misconduct penalty during the season) for a knee-on-knee hit to Carolina Hurricanes defenseman Tim Gleason during a game the previous day.[33] Both Gleason and Ovechkin had to be helped off the ice, although Gleason later returned during the game, while Ovechkin did not. Ovechkin was assessed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct at the time. Capitals Coach Bruce Boudreau commented that Ovechkin's style of play was at times "reckless." The suspension was Ovechkin's first of his career, causing him to forfeit $98,844.16 in salary.[34]

text: On 5 January 2010, Ovechkin was named captain of the Washington Capitals after previous captain Chris Clark was traded to the Columbus Blue Jackets. He became the first European, second-youngest and 14th overall captain in team history.[35] On 5 February, at a game against the New York Rangers, Ovechkin, with his second goal and third point of the game, reached the 500-point milestone of his NHL career. He is the fifth player to achieve the milestone in only five seasons, reaching it in 373 career games.[36] On 14 March, at a game against the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center, Ovechkin sent 'Hawks defenseman Brian Campbell into the boards after Campbell had dumped the puck to the blue line. Ovechkin was called for boarding, receiving a five-minute major and a game misconduct,[37] and was suspended for two games (for a third game misconduct of the season, a two-game suspension is automatic).[38] Campbell suffered a fractured clavicle and fractured rib, and was expected to be out seven-to-eight weeks.[39]

text: Ovechkin won the 2009–10 Ted Lindsay Award, becoming only the second player in NHL history to win the award in three consecutive years. He also led the NHL in goals per game and points per game for three straight seasons, from 2008 to 2010.[40] Ovechkin ranks third in Capitals history in goals (only Peter Bondra and Mike Gartner have tallied more goals) and is seventh in total points.

text: In 2009–10 Ovechkin surpassed the mark of Hall of Fame goaltender Bill Durnan (first four seasons from 1943–44 through 1946–47) and became the first player in NHL history voted a First Team All-Star in each of his first five seasons.[41]

text: In 2011, Ovechkin and the Capitals took part in the New Year's Day NHL Winter Classic, facing the Pittsburgh Penguins. Ovechkin did not score any points, but the Capitals won 3–1. On 8 March 2011, in a 5–0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, Ovechkin recorded his 600th career point. On 5 April, Ovechkin scored his 300th career goal, becoming the sixth-youngest and seventh-fastest player to do so.[42]

text: On 23 January 2012, Ovechkin received a three-game suspension for a hit on Zbyněk Michálek of the Pittsburgh Penguins. The following day, Ovechkin announced he would not attend the 2012 NHL All-Star Game due to the suspension.[43]

text: Ovechkin's numbers dipped in the 2011 and 2012 seasons, but in the lockout-shortened 2013 season, he led the NHL in goal-scoring with 32, earning him his third Rocket Richard Trophy. He combined his 32 goals with 24 assists, giving him 56 points, good for third most points in the NHL.[44] He was also awarded the Hart Memorial Trophy for the third time in his career. Ovechkin only scored two points in a first round exit of the 2013 Stanley Cup playoffs against the New York Rangers, during which he played with a hairline fracture in his foot. After the 2013 season, Ovechkin made history by being named to both the First and Second NHL All-Star Teams. He had switched to playing right wing that entire season so was voted to the First All-Star Team's right wing, but because some voters were not aware of the change, voted for him at his traditional left wing position, therefore also landing him left wing on the Second All-Star Team.[45]

text: On 20 December 2013, in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Ovechkin scored his 400th career goal.[46] He became the sixth fastest player to ever reach that mark, getting it in 634 games, one less than Pavel Bure.

text: At the conclusion of the 2013–14 season, Ovechkin had the strange distinction of winning the Rocket Richard Trophy, scoring 51 goals, while going −35, one of the NHL's worst, in the plus-minus statistic. However, the Capitals missed the playoffs for the first time since 2006–07.

text: On 4 November 2014, in a game against the Calgary Flames, Ovechkin recorded his 826th point, a franchise record, surpassing Peter Bondra, who previously held the record with 825 points. However, the Flames won the game 4–3 in overtime. On 31 March 2015, in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes, Ovechkin scored his 50th goal of the year and became the sixth player in NHL history to have six 50-goal seasons, joining Guy Lafleur, Mike Bossy, Wayne Gretzky, Marcel Dionne and Mario Lemieux.[47] On 2 April, Ovechkin scored his 51st and 52nd goals of the season in a 5–4 shootout win against the Montreal Canadiens, surpassing Bondra as the franchise leader in goals scored. It was also his 15th multi-goal game of the season, none of which were hat-tricks.[48]

text: During the 2015–16 season, in the second period of a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Ovechkin scored his eighth goal of the season to tie Sergei Fedorov's tally for the most goals among Russian born players, with 483. On 19 November 2015, Ovechkin scored his ninth goal of the season in a 3–2 loss to the Dallas Stars; that goal broke Fedorov's record. On 10 January 2016, Ovechkin scored his 500th and 501st goals in a 7–1 victory over the Ottawa Senators, becoming the 43rd player to reach the 500-goal plateau, and the fifth-fastest player to do so, as well as the first Russian.[49] On 9 April, Ovechkin scored his 50th goal of the season and became the third player in NHL history to have seven or more 50-goal seasons.[50][51]

text: During the 2015–16 season, Ovechkin, for the first time in his career, did not lead the Washington Capitals in points, although he still led the team in goals with 50, and finished second on the team in points with 71, behind fellow countryman Evgeny Kuznetsov, who finished with 77.[52] In the second round of the 2016 Stanley Cup playoffs, the Washington Capitals lost the series to the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 6 after a 4–3 overtime defeat.

text: On 11 January 2017, Ovechkin scored his 1,000th career point, becoming the 37th player in NHL history to reach 1,000 points with only one team.[53]

text: The 2017–18 season appeared to be historic for Ovechkin, who broke many NHL and Capitals' records during the regular season. On 7 October 2017, he became the first player in 100 years with back-to-back hat-tricks to start the season.[54] As well, on 25 November, Ovechkin passed Bondra as the team's all-time leader in hat-tricks with his 20th of his career.[55] On 21 October, in a game against the Detroit Red Wings, Ovechkin surpassed Jaromír Jágr for most regular season overtime goals with the 20th of his career.[56] He extended the record again in December in an overtime win against the Anaheim Ducks.[57]

text: On 12 March 2018, Ovechkin scored his 600th career goal, making him the 20th player to ever reach such a feat, and the fourth to do so in less than 1,000 games.[58] On 1 April 2018 Ovechkin would play in his 1,000th NHL game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, becoming the first Capitals player to play 1,000 games and the 54th NHL player to do so within the same franchise.[59] At the conclusion of the regular season, Ovechkin was awarded the Rocket Richard trophy for the seventh time in his career.[60] He became the second player, tied with Bobby Hull, to win the NHL's goal scoring title seven times.[61]

text: Stanley Cup Finals

text: On 23 May 2018, Ovechkin helped lead the Capitals to the Stanley Cup Finals for their first time since 1998. On June 7, he won his first Stanley Cup by defeating the Vegas Golden Knights 4-3 in Game 5. He was named MVP of the series.[62] As the "face of the Capitals" for over a decade, Ovechkin had taken "the lion's share of the blame" for the team's failing record postseason — which had included three straight exits during the second round, two of them dealt by the Pittsburgh Penguins. But, in the 2018 playoffs "Ovi's been on a mission," according to coach Trotz. "There were a lot of people doubting if he still had what it took. The great players take exception to that. . . I think he took it personally. He said, 'I'm going to show you I'm still a great player.' And he did."[63]

text: Ovechkin was "in the midst of the most dominant postseason of his career," with 12 goals and 22 points over 19 games, and averaging 21:14 of ice time per game.[63] Of finally breaking through to the Stanley Cup Finals, Ovechkin himself says, "I feel very happy, but we're not finished yet. We've been waiting for this moment a long time."[64] After 13 seasons in the NHL, Ovechkin competed in his first conference finals, and played in his first Stanley Cup Final.[65] He scored the first Stanley Cup Final goal of his 13-year, 1,121-game NHL career on 30 May 2018 in Game 2 against the Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas.[66] The Stanley Cup victory was the first in the Capitals 44 year franchise history.

text: Player profile

text: Ovechkin's capability to shoot heavily as a power forward[67][68][69] has been well documented.

text: "But I tell you, when you get on the ice with him and you see his shot for the first time, it's crazy. It's so, so hard. When I shoot, I can see my puck. When he shoots … Oh, come on. Where's the puck?"[70]

text: "Guys like Ovi shoot it so hard that it's almost like you're a batter in baseball. You see the blur of the puck coming at you in frames."[71]

text: "When he gets to the left faceoff circle, good luck to the opposing goaltender. He still is one of the most dangerous players with the puck on the rush and in the high-slot. His one-timer is still the best in the league."[72]

text: "The truth is that we are witnessing one of the most amazing players in NHL history, even if not all of us understand that yet."[73]

text: "There are so many good players in the league you can find comparables to. Ovie is different than everybody in the league. I could find a lot of guys that are more similar to Sid. Ovie is one of a kind. I wish I could say he doesn't care about what people think about him, but I know he does. He's just not as worried about the perception. He just is who he is. He doesn't try to hide it. He just does what he does. And it's obviously worked for him."[74]

text: The Capitals' morning skate ritually begins with captain Ovechkin "sprinting around the rink, a solo lap to the sound of sticks tapping from his teammates." Once he's made it all the way around, the rest of the team jumps onto the ice to join him.[75] Ovechkin is known as a durable player, losing little time to injuries. After being struck on the foot by a teammate's wrist shot during a 2006 game in Vancouver, he "crumpled to the ice and had to be helped to the locker room." Exhibiting no ill effects in practice the next day, Ovechkin famously told reporters, "I'm okay; Russian machine never breaks."[76]

text: Late in the 2008–09 season, Ovechkin garnered some criticism over his exuberant after-goal celebrations. On 28 February 2009, during a segment of Hockey Night in Canada's Coach's Corner, Canadian hockey analyst Don Cherry likened Ovechkin's celebrations of jumping into the boards and his teammates to that of soccer players, concluding that this was not the Canadian way and advising Canadian kids to ignore Ovechkin's example. Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau came to Ovechkin's defense, stating Cherry "doesn't know Alex like we know Alex", and Ovechkin himself stated that he "doesn't care" about Cherry.[77] The next notable incident happened on 19 March 2009, in a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning. After scoring his 50th goal of the season, Ovechkin put his stick on the ice, pretending to warm his hands over it because it was "hot." The incident sparked an immediate response from Tampa Bay coach Rick Tocchet, who said that "[Ovechkin] went down a notch in my books." Boudreau had also stated that he would discuss the incident with Ovechkin, and teammate Mike Green, despite being the first to celebrate with Ovechkin afterwards, commented that he did not wish to join in the pre-meditated celebration.[78] Ovechkin himself was unapologetic, and said about Don Cherry in particular, "He's going to be pissed off for sure...I love it!."[79]

text: After using and endorsing CCM equipment for most of his career, Ovechkin made the move to Bauer Hockey in August 2011 — following a decline in his point production in the 2010–11 season.[80] He continued to use Bauer equipment until the 2017 season, when he switched back to CCM.[81] Ovechkin currently uses the Ribcor Trigger stick and Super Tacks AS1 skates.

text: International play

text:
Alexander Ovechkin

Ovechkin during the 2010 Winter Olympics

Medal record

Representing  Russia

Men's ice hockey

World Championships

2008 Canada

2012 Finland/Sweden

2014 Belarus

2010 Germany

2015 Czech Republic

2005 Austria

2007 Russia

2016 Russia

World Junior Championships

2003 Canada

2005 United States

World U18 Championships

2002 Slovakia

2003 Russia

tag: table

text: At the age of 16, Ovechkin helped lead the junior national team to the gold medal with two hat tricks, one against Switzerland and one against the United States, and an assist.

text: At the age of 17, when he was selected by Russian coach Viktor Tikhonov to play in the Česká Pojišťovna Cup EuroTour tournament, Ovechkin became the youngest skater ever to play for the Russian national team. In that tournament, he also became the youngest player ever to score for the national team. He also was selected to play at the 2002 IIHF World U18 Championships, which he amassed 14 goals and four assists in eight games, leading Russia to a silver medal.[4][82] Ovechkin holds the record for most points scored in IIHF U18 World Championships with 31 points in 14 games.[83]

text: At the age of 18, Ovechkin was named captain of the junior Russian national team. Russia finished fifth in the tournament. In 2003, the team would go on to win a gold medal in the IIHF World U20 Championship.

text: At the age of 19, Ovechkin was named to the Russian national team for the 2004 World Cup of Hockey, making him the youngest player to play in the tournament.[84][85]

text:
Also at 19, Ovechkin was named captain of the junior team in the 2005 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships. The tournament, lasting from 25 December 2004, to 4 January 2005, was Ovechkin's third and last. At the conclusion of the tournament, he had collected seven goals, tied for the tournament lead. His team received the silver medal after losing the gold medal game to Canada on 4 January, and Ovechkin was named the Best Forward of the tournament as well as selected to the tournament All-Star Team.
In 2005, Ovechkin played in his first IIHF men's World Championships. He scored five goals and three assists, landing eighth in the top scorers list and sharing third place in goal scoring.

text: In 2006, Ovechkin played in his first Winter Olympic Games. Although Russia came away from the games without a medal, Ovechkin scored five goals in the tournament, including the game-winner against Canada's Martin Brodeur, eliminating Canada from the tournament. Ovechkin was the only player not on the Swedish (gold medal winners) or Finnish (silver medal winners) teams to be named to the all-tournament team.

text: At the 2006 IIHF World Championships, Ovechkin scored six goals and three assists (nine points) in seven games before Russia lost 4–3 to the Czech Republic in the quarter-finals. For his efforts, Ovechkin was one of six players selected to the Media All-Star Team.

text: At the 2008 IIHF World Championships, Ovechkin helped lead Russia to the gold medal by finishing with 12 points (six goals, six assists) in nine games. He was selected to the Media All-Star Team for the second time in five tournament appearances.

text: In the 2010 Winter Olympics, Ovechkin and Team Russia were one of the favourites to win the Gold Medal. Despite high expectations, Russia lost to Canada 7–3 in the quarterfinals. Ovechkin finished with two goals and two assists in Russia's four games.[86]

text: After being eliminated in the first round of the NHL playoffs, Ovechkin joined Russia for the 2010 IIHF World Championships along with many other Russian stars, such as Evgeni Malkin, Pavel Datsyuk and Ilya Kovalchuk. Despite being heavily favoured to win the tournament, Russia lost to the Czech Republic in the finals.

text: Ovechkin also joined the Russian team for the 2011 IIHF World Championships after the Capitals were eliminated from the NHL playoffs. He played in five games for the Russian team, but did not manage to score any points, the first time he failed to score any points in a World Championship tournament.

text: Ovechkin played in Russia's last three games of the 2012 IIHF World Championships. He recorded two goals and two assists as Russia won the tournament.

text: Ovechkin also represented Russia in 2013 IIHF World Championships. He joined the national team after the Capitals were eliminated from the Stanley Cup playoffs in 2013. Russia had already advanced to the first playoff round where they faced the U.S. The Americans defeated Russia 8–3, eliminating them from the tournament.

text: In the 2014 Winter Olympics, Ovechkin represented Russia under enormous pressure as the tournament was hosted on home ice in Sochi. Russia lost to arch-rivals Finland 3–1 in the quarter-final round.

text: Ovechkin participated in the 2014 IIHF World Championships where Russia won gold. After the tournament, he asked Vladimir Putin to reward the Russian hockey team on an equal basis with the 2014 Olympic champions.[87][88] That was criticized as the World Championship was considered insignificant compared to Olympic gold, which Russia had failed to win earlier that year in Sochi.[89] He also joined the Russian team late in the 2015 IIHF World Championships, where Russia won the silver medal.

text: Off the ice

text: Ovechkin is the cover athlete of 2K Sports hockey simulation video game NHL 2K10, as well as the cover athlete of EA Sports' NHL 07. On 11 June 2008, Ovechkin launched his own line of designer streetwear with CCM.[90] On 6 July 2009, Ovechkin was named an ambassador for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.[91] In late 2009, he was named GQ's 48th most powerful person in Washington, D.C.[92]

text: During the 2010–11 season, Ovechkin has been featured in one of ESPN's This is SportsCenter commercials, in which he laughed off a question by ESPN personality Steve Levy accusing him of being a Russian spy before being pulled upward by a line through an open ceiling tile by countryman and then-Capitals teammate Semyon Varlamov.[93]

text: Ovechkin is a dedicated car enthusiast, owning many fine automobiles, such as a Mercedes-Benz SL65 AMG Black Series and a custom Mercedes S63 AMG.[citation needed] At the 2015 NHL All-Star Game, Ovechkin lobbied Honda for a new car, and brought an element of fun silliness to the "draft" where he was chosen third to last; the last two players selected, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Filip Forsberg, each received a new car, but Ovechkin would not give up. When Honda representatives asked his agent why he wanted a car so badly, they were told that he planned to donate it to the American Special Hockey Association, and at the end of the event, he was handed the keys to a new Honda Accord. That Accord was auctioned off, and the proceeds used to benefit the charity Ovechkin highlighted and brought attention to with his antics.[94]

text: In November 2017 Ovechkin started a movement called PutinTeam in support of Russian President Vladimir Putin with the support of Russian actors, sportsmen, musicians and NHL players including Evgeni Malkin, Ilya Kovalchuk and others.[95][96]

text: Malkin feud

text: Ovechkin was reportedly involved in a feud with Pittsburgh Penguins forward Evgeni Malkin, who was drafted second behind Ovechkin in the 2004 NHL Entry Draft. Though the two were reported to be good friends when they roomed together during the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, this friendship quickly cooled.[97] The feud may have started in August 2007 when Ovechkin supposedly punched Malkin's Russian agent, Gennady Ushakov, at a Moscow nightclub. Ovechkin has denied that version of events, while Malkin confirmed it. On 21 January 2008, in Pittsburgh, when Ovechkin took a run at Malkin, which would have seemingly resulted in a devastating hit had Malkin not ducked out of the way just in time. The two would also not make eye contact at the 2008 NHL Awards Ceremony. Ovechkin has repeatedly denied "having it out" for Malkin.[97]

text: The feud raised many concerns as to its effect on the league,[97] and the Russian national team at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.[98] On 24 January 2009, at the SuperSkills Competition, Malkin assisted Ovechkin in his stunt during the Breakaway Challenge.[99] Malkin handed Ovechkin his props for the stunt as well as handing him his stick and pouring some sports drink down Ovechkin's throat. Though there is no final word on the nature and status of the feud, considering their past interactions, this incident appears to show that the feud has effectively ended. It has been reported that Ilya Kovalchuk, who was then the Atlanta Thrashers' captain and is also teammate of Ovechkin and Malkin on the Russian national team, brokered the peace between the two.[100]

text: Personal and family

text: When Ovechkin was 10 years old, his brother Sergei died from a blood clot following a car accident. Sergei had supported Ovechkin's interest in hockey at a young age. The day after Sergei's death, Ovechkin had a youth game which his parents, Mikhail Ovechkin and Tatyana Ovechkina,[101] insisted he would play in. "It was hard, I was crying. I remember I was crying that day", Ovechkin said in an interview. "I was on the bench, I was crying. But my shift, my coach said okay, go play. And I played and I was crying. It was hard but at 10 years old, you obviously [don't] realize what's happening. It was a hard moment for my mom and dad, for all my family because oldest son passed away. It was a hard time."[102]

text: Ovechkin was formerly engaged to tennis player Maria Kirilenko. On 21 July 2014, Kirilenko announced that the wedding was called off and that the two were no longer seeing each other.[103] On 11 September 2015, Ovechkin announced via Instagram his engagement to Nastya Shubskaya (daughter of Vera Glagoleva)[104] whom he subsequently married.[105]

text: On 7 June 2018, in an interview after winning his first Stanley Cup, it was made public that Ovechkin and his wife are expecting their first child."[106]

text: Honors, awards, and achievements

text:
Order of Honour (Орден Почёта)
Asteroid 257261 Ovechkin was named in his honor by Leonid Elenin.[107]
Ride of Fame honored Alex Ovechkin with a double decker sightseeing bus in Washington, D.C.[108]
2018 ESPY Award for the Best Male Athlete – first NHL player to win the award[109]

tag: ul

text: RSL/KHL

text:
Russian Superleague: 2005 RSL Champion
KHL: 2013 Gagarin Cup Champion (Gold Medal)[110]

text: NHL

text:
National Hockey League

Award

Year

NHL All-Rookie Team

2006

Calder Memorial Trophy (NHL Rookie of the Year)

2006

Hart Memorial Trophy (MVP)

2008, 2009, 2013

Art Ross Trophy (Scoring Leader)

2008

Presidents' Trophy (Best Regular Season record)

2010, 2016, 2017

Lester B. Pearson Award/Ted Lindsay Award*

2008, 2009, 2010*

Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy (Goal Leader)

2008, 2009, 2013/lockout, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018

Kharlamov Trophy

2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015

NHL All-Star Game (**as right wing)

2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013,** 2015

NHL First All-Star Team (**as right wing)

2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2013,** 2015

NHL Second All-Star Team

2011, 2013, 2014, 2016

NHL All-Star Game SuperSkills Competition "Breakaway Challenge" Winner

2008, 2009, 2011

NHL All-Star Game SuperSkills Competition "Hardest Shot" Winner

2018

Stanley Cup champion with Washington Capitals

2018

Conn Smythe Trophy

2018

Prince of Wales Trophy

2018

text:
On 25 January 2009, Ovechkin scored one goal and notched two assists, as well as scoring the game-ending shootout goal in the 2009 NHL All-Star Game, as the Eastern Conference won 12–11.[111]
The day after he received his first Hart Memorial Trophy as league MVP for the 2012-13 season, he was given the key to the city by Washington Mayor Adrian M. Fenty for being the first Washington MVP winner in a major sport since Joe Theismann of the Washington Redskins in 1983.[112]
Became 4th-fastest player and 20th player overall to reach 600 career goals on 12 March 2018, with a second-period goal against the Winnipeg Jets (only active player with 600+ goals).[58]
Scored his 4th career Game 7 goal on 23 May 2018, handing the Tampa Bay Lightning their first Game 7 loss at home in the franchise's 25-year history, while putting the Capitals in the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 1998.
2018 ESPY Award for the Best NHL PLayer[113]

text: International

text:
2005 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships – Best Forward & All-Star Team
2006 Winter Olympics – All-Star Team
2006 World Championships – All-Star Team
2008 World Championships – All-Star Team
2008 World Championships – Gold Medal
2012 World Championships – Gold Medal
2014 World Championships – Gold Medal

text: Career statistics

text: Regular season and playoffs

text: Bold indicates led league

text:
Regular season

Playoffs

Season

Team

League

GP

G

A

Pts

PIM

GP

G

A

Pts

PIM

2001–02

Dynamo-2 Moscow

RUS-3

19
18
8
26
20

—
—
—
—
—

2001–02

Dynamo Moscow

RSL

21
2
2
4
4

3
0
0
0
0

2002–03

Dynamo Moscow

RSL

40
8
7
15
29

5
0
0
0
2

2003–04

Dynamo Moscow

RSL

53
13
11
24
40

3
0
0
0
2

2004–05

Dynamo Moscow

RSL

37
13
13
26
32

10
2
4
6
31

2005–06

Washington Capitals

NHL

81
52
54
106
52

—
—
—
—
—

2006–07

Washington Capitals

NHL

82
46
46
92
52

—
—
—
—
—

2007–08

Washington Capitals

NHL

82
65
47
112
40

7
4
5
9
0

2008–09

Washington Capitals

NHL

79
56
54
110
72

14
11
10
21
8

2009–10

Washington Capitals

NHL

72
50
59
109
89

7
5
5
10
0

2010–11

Washington Capitals

NHL

79
32
53
85
41
9

5
5
10
10

2011–12

Washington Capitals

NHL

78
38
27
65
26

14
5
4
9
8

2012–13

Dynamo Moscow

KHL

31
19
21
40
14

—
—
—
—
—

2012–13

Washington Capitals

NHL

48
32
24
56
36

7
1
1
2
4

2013–14

Washington Capitals

NHL

78
51
28
79
49

—
—
—
—
—

2014–15

Washington Capitals

NHL

81
53
28
81
58

14
5
4
9
6

2015–16

Washington Capitals

NHL

79
50
21
71
53

12
5
7
12
2

2016–17

Washington Capitals

NHL

82
33
36
69
50

13
5
3
8
8

2017–18

Washington Capitals

NHL

82
49
38
87
32

24
15
12
27
8

RSL totals

151
36
33
69
106

21
2
4
6
35

KHL totals

31
19
21
40
14

—
—
—
—
—

NHL totals

1003
607
515
1122
649

121
61
56
117
54

text: International

text:
Year

Team

Event

Result

GP

G

A

Pts

PIM

2002

Russia

U18

8

14

4

18

0

2003

Russia

WJC

6

6

1

7

4

2003

Russia

U18

6

9

4

13

6

2004

Russia

WJC

5

6

5

2

7

25

2004

Russia

WC

10

6

1

1

2

0

2004

Russia

WCH

6

2

1

0

1

0

2005

Russia

WJC

6

7

4

11

4

2005

Russia

WC

8

5

3

8

4

2006

Russia

Oly

4

8

5

0

5

8

2006

Russia

WC

5

7

6

3

9

6

2007

Russia

WC

8

1

2

3

29

2008

Russia

WC

9

6

6

12

8

2010

Russia

Oly

6

4

2

2

4

2

2010

Russia

WC

9

5

1

6

4

2011

Russia

WC

4

5

0

0

0

4

2012

Russia

WC

3

2

2

4

2

2013

Russia

WC

6

1

1

1

2

0

2014

Russia

Oly

5

5

1

1

2

0

2014

Russia

WC

9

4

7

11

8

2015

Russia

WC

2

1

1

2

0

2016

Russia

WC

6

1

1

2

2

2016

Russia

WCH

4

4

1

2

3

6

Junior totals

32

41

15

56

39

Senior totals

96

43

33

76

83

text: NHL All-Star Games

text:
Year

Location

G
A
Pts

2007

Dallas

1
0
1

2008

Atlanta

2
0
2

2009

Montreal

1
2
3

2011

Raleigh

1
1
2

2015

Columbus

0
3
3

2017

Los Angeles

1
1
2

2018

Tampa Bay

1
1
2

All-Star totals

7
8
15

text: Records

text: NHL records

text:
First player to win the Art Ross Trophy, Maurice Richard Trophy, Lester B. Pearson Award, and Hart Memorial Trophy in a single season.[114]
Only player to be named to the NHL First All-Star Team in each of his first five seasons.[115]
Most NHL goal scoring titles with 7 (tied with Bobby Hull).[61]
2008 65 goals, 2009 56 goals, 2013 32 goals (lockout shortened), 2014 51 goals, 2015 53 goals, 2016 50 goals, 2018 49 goals — for which he won the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy each year.
Most goals scored by a left-winger in a season: 65 goals in 2007-08.
Most points scored by a left-wing rookie: 106 in 2005–06.
Most shots on goal by a left-winger in a season: 528 in 2008–09.
Most shots on goal by a rookie in a season: 425 in 2005–06.
Point streak in consecutive games to start an NHL career by a No. 1 overall pick: 8 games in 2005-06.
Most regular season points by a Russian-born NHL rookie: 106 in 2005–06.
Fastest overtime goal: 6 seconds on 15 December 2006 vs. Atlanta Thrashers (tied with Mats Sundin and David Legwand).
Only player to be named to both the NHL First and Second All-Star Teams in the same season: 2012–13
Most goals by a Russian-born player with 607.[116]
Most career overtime goals with 20.
Most seasons of 10+ game-winning goals with 5.[117]

text: Washington Capitals records

text:
Most seasons with 50 or more goals – 7 (2005–06, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16)
Most shots on goal in a season – 528 (2008–09)
Most goals in a season (2007–08) – 65 goals
Most power play goals – 195 (9 April 2016)
Most power play goals in a season (2014–15) – 25 PP goals
Most career overtime goals – 20 OT goals
Most career penalty shots attempted – 10 shots (most recent on 7 March 2015)
Most goals in a season by a rookie (2005–06) – 52 goals
Most points in a season by a rookie (2005–06) – 106 points
Point streak by a rookie – 11 games (17 points; 5 goals, 12 assists), 18 March – 7 April 2006
Point streak by a rookie to start season – 8 games
Goal streak by a rookie – 7 games, 10 February – 8 March 2006
Most career hat tricks – 20
Most career goals – 607
Most career points – 1038
Most goals in a single postseason (2017–18) - 15