What is lean manufacturing?

There are two primary ways a manufacturing business can maximize its profits. First is, by increasing its sales and the second by cutting costs. Costs include what that business spends, including but not limited to acquiring raw materials to delivering goods to the customer. To bring down the costs of a manufacturing unit, Toyota Company introduced a manufacturing methodology known as “lean manufacturing”. Aimed at streamlining the manufacturing process and reducing waste, lean manufacturing has been adopted my many of the world’s most competitive manufacturing concerns.

What Does Lean Manufacturing Mean?

Although, the lean manufacturing system was first developed in Japan for Toyota’s manufacturing unit, today it has been modified to include service industries as well. This system is based on the principle of eliminating wastes of all kind that can add to the cost of service.

Below is a list of the possible waste that a business unit is likely to encounter.

1. Overproduction – Manufacturing more finished product than required to meet customer needs
2. Motion – Moving machines and people, without any kind of value addition’
3. Defects – reduction in manufacturing defects that leads to a waste of resources
4. Inventory – Over and under stocking of inventory
5. Waiting – Workers waiting for anything, including information, instructions, and raw materials to waiting for a machine to complete a task
6. Transportation – Unnecessarily moving products from one location to another
7.  Processing – Eliminating unnecessary processes which can be easily combined

In a lean manufacturing environment, wastes are continuously identified and eliminated, with the intended result of a smooth flow of materials, products, people and services. This in turn will help in bring down the cost of manufacturing.

The Lean Manufacturing Process

The lean manufacturing system basically follows four steps.

1. Identification of the various forms of wastes.
2. Identifying the causes behind these wastes.
3. Identify an appropriate solution.
4. Quantify the effectiveness of any changes that are made.

 Total Quality Management

 TQM refers to managing the entire organization, including the production and supply chain, in such a way that the quality is maintained and the customer achieves maximum satisfaction. It aims for implementing a quality culture throughout the entire organization. All stakeholders from production worker to executives follow and adopt this culture.’

 Just In Time 

 JIT is an inventory method that aims at zero waste by eliminating the waiting time for the raw materials and eliminating the need for on hand inventory. Thereby bringing down the inventory carrying costs. Under this system, only that inventory that is required at a specific point in time is ordered and stored. In a perfect JIT environment, raw materials used in manufacturing often come off the truck directly to the line for immediate production.

 5S

5S refers to the five organizational principles of: sort, shine, set in order, standardize and sustain which organizations utilize to organize production and remain clutter-free.

Kaizen

The principle of continuous improvement known as “Kaizen” requires the entire manufacturing process to be regularly accessed for inefficiencies that can be identified and corrected to result in positive changes in the quality of product and the efficiency of production, which in turn adds value to the customer when possible.

When choosing and implementing lean manufacturing concepts, seeing the big picture is imperative. Making sure solutions that have a positive impact on the whole, rather than just on the problem at hand is the key to reducing waste and the efficient utilization of resources in the best possible manner.