Lean means "manufacturing without waste." Waste ("muda" in Japanese) has many forms. Material, time, idle equipment, and inventory are examples. Most companies waste 50%-90% of their available resources. Even the best Lean Manufacturers probably waste 30%.

Lean Manufacturing and Cellular Manufacturing improve material handling, inventory, quality, scheduling, personnel and customer satisfaction.

For examples and hard numbers on these improvements see Benefits. The payoff to shareholders is significant and documented.

Core Disciplines

Most waste is invisible. Nor is elimination easy . A set of techniques that identify and eliminate waste is: "Lean Manufacturing."

► Cellular Manufacturing
► Pull Scheduling (Kanban)
► Six Sigma/Total Quality Management
► Rapid Setup
► Team Development

These are core disciplines. Not every organization requires them all. Others require supplementary disciplines. Determining which disciplines are most important and/or urgent is vital.

Tools

Value Stream Mapping and Process Mapping are two tools that can help eliminate waste and streamline work. Group Technology can sort out workflow in complex product mixes. Other analysis tools are also available.

Inventory

Besides core disciplines and tools, there is an overall theme of inventory reduction; Inventory hides waste. Almost every imperfection or problem creates a need for inventory. Hence, inventory is a result and measures the imperfection of the system.

People & Technology

Factories include people. To function well, people and technology must integrate in a system exploiting the strengths and minimizing the limitations of each component. Every core discipline has a psychological component. Eric Trist called this a Socio-Technical System.

The Systems Perspective

The core disciplines are interdependent. Each acts upon and improves the others in a continuous cycle. Over time, this reinforcement builds momentum like a snowball rolling downhill. Results for the system are greater than the separate effects. Therefore, see manufacturing as a system.

Science vs. Slogans

Factorytalk prefers a scientific and engineering perspective rather than slogans, edicts, and imitation. Science necessarily includes the human disciplines since all factories are Socio-Technical Systems.

Using this approach allows the carrying of principles into new and different factories where there are no examples to copy.

"...the tools and artefacts were developed to deal with very particular problems that were affecting people in very particular circumstances. Working under different circumstances presents different problems, which requires different tools and different thinking." -so says Steven Spear of Harvard who wrote "Decoding The DNA of the Toyota Production System."

Metrics for Lean Manufacturing

Lean metrics go beyond traditional financial and accounting measurements. Accounting and financial metrics often measure only the end result. They do not help control the process, solve problems or motivate people. Here are some general principles for metrics:

► Keep It Simple
Use metrics that are easy to compile and update; Complex calculations or metrics that require excessive work do not get updated or can provoke people to get lazy and fake the data.

► Use Tripwires
Simple metrics may not reveal the problem source. This is OK. The daily or weekly metric only needs to alert you that a problem exists.

► Limit The Metrics
Each person or team should have 3-6 daily or weekly metrics. More than this and the metrics do not get monitored. These metrics do not have to contain all the information that the person or group will ever need; they should just signal an alert.

► Drill Down When Problems Arise
When a "tripwire" metric indicates a deviation, you can investigate further to find the source of the problem. This may require additional data that is not continually gathered, processed and analyzed.

Benefits

Lean Manufacturing offers many advantages:

► Material handling
Illustrations of a functional and cellular layout demonstrate material handling benefits. Fewer moves, shorter travel distances, and simpler route structures add up to significant savings.

► Inventory, scheduling
The functional layout presents severe scheduling and inventory control difficulties. Cellular layouts simplify the underlying process and thereby simplify scheduling.

► Quality
Because the operations in a functional layout are scattered, problem solving that cuts across departmental boundaries is difficult. Departmental loyalties work against it. With teams and work cells, quality is more likely to be self-enforced. Work cells derive these advantages from their small size and process integration.

Conclusions
Lean Manufacturing can produce similar but quicker results than TQM or Six Sigma. Typically, smaller, low capital, and highly focused firms benefit more. Benefits will depend highly on effective implementation (problematic).

Free Consultation

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