What is LEAN Manufacturing
In the world of manufacturing, one of the most spoken words is “Lean.” Some talk about lean methodologies, others talk about lean processes. They all are looking for the same idea, which is to say, remove waste from the system. Today we are going to delve into what this methodology is, and hopefully help explain why it is so important. While this won’t prepare you for a Black-Belt cert, it should be enough to get you thinking in the right direction.
Background:
Frequent readers of our blog will recognize that whenever we talk about a process improvement methodology, the Toyota Production System (TPS) is mentioned (Kaizen and Six Sigma). This is no different, and the core tenants we’ll explore here today stem from the 1950’s/1960’s Japanese industrial rebuilding period.
Japan of this time, recovering from WWII, was in a position to start its manufacturing sector from scratch. To aid in this, an American economist, Edward Deming, relocated to Japan to help their recovery. He brought with him ideas which legacy American companies had shirked. As he worked with the Japanese manufacturers, specifically Toyota, the TPS was born.
Japan had a few factors which made traditional US manufacturing practices problematic. Namely, the companies were cash strapped, the islands are small, and there were few natural resources. As a result, Japanese manufacturers had to remove any waste from their production. In other words, they had to run a lean operation. Engineers at Toyota studied their processes and created the 7 wastes idea.
The 7 Wastes:
1. Excess inventory of both raw and finished goods.
2. Overproduction
3. Over-processing
4. Excess transportation
5. Excess motion
6. Waiting
7. Defective production
These may seem like logical wastes to identify and focus on now, however at the time large inventories were seen as a safe guard. There weren’t strong statistical tools for tracking waste either, which resulted in ignored or misunderstood problems. By focusing on each level, Toyota was able to develop lean processes that were the envy of the world.
Several of these points, namely the waste of Defective Production, are core to Six-Sigma as well. Lean and Six-Sigma are designed to work together, hence why the overall methodology is often listed as one idea (Lean Six-Sigma).
Just in Time Manufacturing:
To counter these wastes, several processes were proposed for each. Line balancing helped waiting, build to order planning limited overproduction, and most notably Just in Time Manufacturing limited excess inventory. This one concept is possibly the most embraced lean idea around the world.
The idea, at its core, is to eliminate inventory. Let’s think of a simple machine shop lathe operation. A steel bar should be delivered only when the lathe can immediately accept it. The lathe should neither have a backed-up que of material, nor be waiting for material. By perfectly timing the material delivery from the vendor, and the process time, we can maximize the usage of the lathe and its operator.
Sometimes just in time manufacturing gets a bad rep, especially when supply chain issues arise. Such as the Suez Canal blockage stopping raw material shipments for much of the world. Unfortunately, this is aa risk of running a lean operation, if there’s a hiccup at one stage, it reverberates through the whole system.
As we saw with that canal incident, some companies embraced the lean principles more than others. Those operations that took the lessons to heart, did not rely on single source providers. Meaning just because one option of the supply chain was affected, another source could be pressed into action. In this way, good contingency plans are critical as the operation gets leaner. Small amounts of inventory can also work to mitigate supply chain breakages without introducing excessive waste.
Conclusion:
As you can see, the idea of lean manufacturing has wide benefits for most industries. Eliminating waste can take many forms, and usually benefits all stake holders. More recently, lean methodologies have been used to help in making environmental sustainability decisions. Limiting travel, over-processing, packaging waste, etc. can all have a major impact towards our environmental goals. Let us help you implement lean strategies today. We pride ourselves in finding waste and implementing creative solutions.
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