Lean Manufacturing
This is a process which in its simplest ideology is designed to eliminate waste. It looks at the whole process as being a means to produce a product to meet the customer’s needs at the lowest possible price with the maximum efficiency.
Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy coming originally from Toyota. It focuses on Toyota; “seven wastes” in order to improve customer value. Collectively known as ‘muda’, these are:
1. Transportation (Moving products & components unnecessarily).
2. Inventory (Not making more than needed).
3. Motion (People not moving around unnecessarily).
4. Waiting (Smooth processes eliminating waiting).
5. Pre processing (Not making before necessary).
6. Over Processing (Not wasting machine time by using lower efficiency machines or processes).
7. Defects (Checking, correcting or producing).
The process of Lean manufacturing is achieved through “Lean thinking”. As waste is eliminated quality is improved and production time and cost is reduced. Techniques such as Value Stream Mapping, Five S and Kanban are “tools” used to access in waste reduction.
A further approach used by Toyota was the improvement of flow or smoothness of operation. An analogy would be of smooth use of the accelerator in a car reduces petrol usage & therefore waste. The smooth flow approach may highlight quality improvements not found through pure waste reduction thinking.
Toyota’s success in “Lean Thinking” is believed to have helped by their mentoring process. As in Kaisen, the whole organisation must play a part.
In all control systems there must be planning, measurement of standards measurement of actual results, comparison and reporting, then ACTION to improve the actuals and then the standards in perpetuation. It is the measurement, recording and reporting at the workplace, where the PDA solutions are very effective.
