Lean Manufacturing Concepts: Keeping It Short And Simple

Lean manufacturing is a school of thought which aims to cut down production to its most basic form. That means any expenses that do not contribute to the value of the product from a customer’s perspective should be avoided. How do you determine value? Fortunately, that’s not yours to dictate. Value is what the consumer is ready to pay for.

History

Lean manufacturing concepts bode well for the producer and consumer. From the side of the manufacturing company, it can create a product with a reduced workload and lesser expense. Their history can be traced to the Toyota Production System in the 1990s, from the Japanese philosophy to cut down waste, proposed by Taiichi Ohno.

These seven wastes are:

Overproduction – creating products that exceed market demand.
Transportation – moving the product within the manufacturing processes is both wasteful and dangerous.
Waiting – there should be no waiting time between processes.
Inappropriate processing – why invest in expensive machinery when a simple one will do?
Unnecessary motion – proper workplace layout will reduce the need for workers to move about when doing their work.

Defects – superior quality limits the inventory of defective products.
Excessive inventory – creating more products than necessary will increase storage cost as well as maintenance expenses.

Lean manufacturing education revolves around the above seven key concepts. While companies added their own variation to be relevant with the times, the main aim is the same: keep production simple.

Training

At its core, lean manufacturing education involves a variation of the “seven wastes” that companies should avoid, according to Toyota, in order to boost production and improve product value.

Proper Planning in Lean Thinking

Implementing Lean strategies in your production line starts with proper preparation. It’s true that methods like Six Sigma emphasize the importance of achieving an efficient state of production and that Lean thinking focuses on the reliability of continuous improvement initiatives. However, these later developments are precisely plotted destinations on a road map to success organizations develop early in the Lean process. Whether it’s A3 problem solving or six sigma training, the key to success is in the ability to honestly appraise the current situation of the manufacturing line and prepare team members with the tools and training they’ll need.

                                                      

Generally, the “preparation stage” is a nebulous term that encompasses far more steps than most people expect. In A3 Problem Solving, proper preparation involves moving beyond simply establishing what the trouble areas on a manufacturing line are in order to firmly determine the root cause of said problems. By uniting an efficient team who are all intimately familiar with the line itself and establishing an open forum for them to discuss what they perceive to be potential or recurring issues, an A3 report that accurately sets the stage for the changes to come can be developed. Through personal development, collaboration and proper training, an effective team can prepare an analysis that often returns surprising dividends. It truly is all in the preparation here. Lean strategies emphasize such thorough steps because it truly is the most effective way to address root problems in the manufacturing line, the existence of which allows problems to resurface when left untreated. For more details on  lean process planning visits: www.ame.org

Using Lean to Deal With Shifting Market Trends

 With the shift in marketing trends now favoring the consumer as the active party in setting the selling point for goods, more and more manufacturers are struggling to stay competitive and successful. Lean process improvement continues to grow in popularity as more and more business leaders realize its effectiveness in dealing with these unfamiliar market trends. Product development enhanced by Lean philosophy is now seen as the optimal way to succeed in that regard.

 Lean thinking continues to grow in popularity among successful business owners because they recognize its ability to confront these trends with tactics, tools and strategies that enhance customer value. In Lean process improvement, manufacturing lines are often benchmarked against competitors to establish a jumping off point for the work yet to come. By establishing a clear picture of the entire manufacturing line, from product development to point of sale, Lean thinkers can identify a multitude of wasteful expenditures. Lean process improvement is so successful because fundamental issues have long remained invisible to organizations. These fundamental issues went ignored for so long that their waste has become integrated into the process without a second thought. In upending classical schools of thought, Lean process improvement is able to not only able to firmly establish the root causes of the issues, but also provides organizations with the tools and strategies they’ll need to eliminate them. Not only that, but a successful Lean-centric overhaul will institute a number of continuous improvement initiatives that will continue to pay dividends for years to come.