What Is Lean Manufacturing

Lean Manufacturing Lean Manufacturing stands out as the single most powerful and practical improvement solution today for manufacturing and job shops. Lean manufacturing delivers quick results and achieves long term goals. The front line employees love this strategy because the tools and techniques are easy to learn and once implemented, promote a smooth collaborative cultural change. Employees are the ones delivering change, not management, so the solutions are designed and implemented by staffs that serve the customers. This direct and empowered team approach puts it miles apart from any other strategy and eliminates the “months to train” and “loss of momentum”. What is Lean? Lean is a unified, comprehensive set of philosophies, rules, guidelines, tools and techniques for eliminating muda, the Japanese word for waste. The concept and first deployments of the lean manufacturing came from Toyota Motor Car Company. The key principles of lean include: • Voice of customer • Value-Stream Mapping • Continuous Improvement • Elimination of waste everywhere, including o Defects o Over Production o Waiting o Transportation o Inventory o Motion o Excessive Processing Toyota Production System House Though Lean concepts have come from the automobile industry, they have been applied successfully in a number of industry sectors including, Aerospace, Military, Healthcare, Job shops, Manufacturing, Accounting and more recently in Education. One way of defining Lean is producing value (a product or a service) with less of everything (inventory, human effort, equipment and tools, plant floor, design and development, total cost etc) to maximize the profit, while delivering a product of highest quality when the customer needs it in the quantity needed. The focus then is on seeing and eliminating the waste from all the aspects of the job. It means a commitment to minimize the total cost (a waste-free operation) while offering a product or service that is focused on your customer's success. PO Box 24499 Royal Oak Auckland Ph: 64 21 173 1060 Email: [email protected] Visit our Website: www.solutions4productivity.com

To achieve the lowest cost you will have to simplify and improve continually all the processes and relationships in an environment of trust, respect and full employee involvement. Toyota developed a manufacturing model based on three pillars: - Just-In-Time Production (JIT) - Build in Quality (Jidoka) - Respect for People If we analyse these concepts, they mean a balanced approach to manufacturing, focused on the customer (JIT), the business (Quality, therefore cost) and the employees (people producing value). The foundation upon which the pillars rest is the basic stability of your business. What it means is that you start with a product or service that can be produced consistently on equipment that provides the parameters required with a workforce that is knowledgeable about what they have to do, using proven methodology. It comes down to the 4M (man, machine, material, method). Once you have that, you can start improving everything using kaizen / continuous improvement principles. You can picture it as the roof of the pillar structure. Why Implement Lean? To be better than the competition in at least one, and ideally all, of important dimensions of Operations- flexibility, innovation, price, quality, delivery, and service To Excel in all the fundamentals -- asset management, product introduction, demand management, etc To continuously improve cycle times, operating margins, asset returns, and customer satisfaction How to Implement Lean? • • • • •

Specify value from the standpoint of the end customer Identify the value stream and eliminate waste Create flow so the product will flow smoothly toward the customer Create pull - Produce only what is needed when requested Pursue perfection through continuous improvement

Kaizen (Continuous Improvement)

Value Stream Mapping

Error Proofing Total Productive Maintenance Continuous Flow Takt Time Production Leveling Pull /Kanban Quick Changeovers POUS Teams Standardised Work Quality at Source Visual Systems Plant Layout 5S

Lean Tool Kit

The Operational Excellence series will be continued with articles on various concepts, tools and techniques used to improve business processes. This article is brought to you by Vishnu Rayapeddi, Principal Consultant & Director of Productivity Solutions Limited based in Auckland. Visit www.solutions4productivity.com for further information. PO Box 24499 Royal Oak Auckland Ph: 64 21 173 1060 Email: [email protected] Visit our Website: www.solutions4productivity.com