Lean Manufacturing

Examples of Lean Manufacturing in the following topics:

• Six Sigma and Lean

  • Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing are production processes that help produce minimal errors and generate the most value for the customer.
  • Lean Manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term "Toyotism" is also prevalent) and identified as "Lean" only in the 1990s.
  • The espoused goals of Lean Manufacturing differ between authors.
  • The following steps should be implemented to create the ideal lean manufacturing system:
  • Explain how Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing optimize the manufacturing process

• The origins of lean thinking

  • Lean manufacturing goes back a long way.
  • The longer a product takes to manufacture, and the more it's moved about, he said, the greater the cost.
  • TPS concepts and techniques have since been reintroduced back into America under the umbrella of lean thinking or lean manufacturing.
  • (Alukal, George, and Manos, Anthony, ‘How Lean Manufacturing Can Help Your Mold Shop') In service firms such as banks, restaurants, hospitals and offices, lean-thinking concepts are referred to as ‘lean enterprise'.
  • (Lean Enterprise Institute, ‘What is Lean Thinking?

• Why does lean thinking elicit strong emotions?

  • Lean thinking contradicts a number of established production theories taught in business schools because it advocates making a shift from conventional batch and queue' production practices (i.e. the mass production of large lots of a product based on anticipated demand) to a ‘one-piece flow' system that produces products in a smooth, continuous stream based on customer demand.
  • (Environmental Protection Agency, ‘Lean Thinking and Methods', Lean Manufacturing and the Environment) This means that customer wants must first be identified before manufacturing begins.
  • Customer demand then ‘pulls' a product or service through the manufacturing process rather than having the business push its mass-produced goods onto the market.

• Typical forms of waste

  • Today, the nine forms of waste that lean manufacturing seeks to reduce or eliminate are:
  • (Lean Enterprise Institute, ‘What is Lean Thinking?

• Operations-Management Tools

  • Lean employs tools to evaluate production workflow and determine where there is waste.
  • In many ways, Lean manufacturing and Six Sigma is reminiscent of Henry Ford and systematic process improvements.
  • Toyota (and the concept of kaizen) is a fantastic example of Lean manufacturing and what is called just-in-time (JIT) inventory management.
  • Toyota became famous in manufacturing for timing every specific element of the manufacturing process to ensure that minimal warehousing was required, delivering each new add-on component at precisely the time it would be needed and in exactly the location it would be installed.
  • Lean and Six Sigma are the two main tools for managers in operations management.

• Starting the journey

  • Lean thinking is based on fi ve principles that must be thoroughly understood and agreed upon before work can begin.
  • Place tools, equipment, supplies and materials in logical sequences where they are needed rather than in off-to-the-side areas (in lean-thinking terminology this is called Point-Of-Use-Storage or POUS).
  • Remember, the point of lean thinking is to create an enterprise that is responsive solely to providing what paying customers want, when they want it.
  • Just as with quality and efficiency, there is no finish line associatedwith lean thinking.
  • (Friedman, Thomas, The World is Flat, Alukal, George, and Manos, Anthony, ‘How Lean Manufacturing Can Help Your Mold Shop', Environmental Protection Agency, ‘Lean Thinking and Methods', Lean Manufacturing and the Environment)

• Introduction to Lean Thinking

  • Lean thinking (also known as lean manufacturing) is a business philosophy that demands the total and systematic elimination of waste from every process, every department and every aspect of an organization.
  • With lean thinking, however, waste is not defined as ‘not obtaining 100% from purchases and investments'.
  • The Dell Computer Company is a classic example of a company that embraces the lean-thinking concept.
  • Dell became a computer-manufacturing powerhouse by allowing customers to personalize their purchase before a sale was made.
  • From the onset, one of Dell's major production expenses involved maintaining a supply of parts to manufacture its products, but since these parts are designed for use in a variety of configurations every single one is always used sooner or later.

• JIT manufacturing principles

  • The JIT philosophy has evolved from a manufacturing-focused management approach to a set of management principles that can be applied to any organization.
  • "Lean operations" is a term that is replacing JIT, especially in service environments.
  • "Lean operations" captures the true essence and power of how a culture built around continuous improvement and the pursuit of value-added activities leads directly to competitive advantage in the marketplace.
  • Lean operations is a management philosophy for any organization to achieve higher quality, increased productivity, improved delivery speed, greater responsiveness to changing markets, and increased customer satisfaction.

• Special topic: just-in-time and lean systems

  • Taiichi Ohno is credited with developing JIT and perfected it for Toyota's manufacturing plants in Japan.
  • In a manufacturing setting, there are six major ways to pursue JIT goals: inventory reduction to expose waste, use of a "demand-pull" production system, quick setups to reduce lot sizes, uniform plant loading, flexible resources, and cellular flow layouts.

• Lean thinking summarized into ten concise steps

  • (Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), ‘Overview: What is Lean Thinking?
  • For more information about lean thinking visit the Lean Thinking Institute at www.lean.org. updated formattingThe international arm of the Lean Thinking Institute is located at www.leanglobal.org.