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.