What Is Lean Manufacturing?

What Is Lean ManufacturingWhat Is Lean Manufacturing?Today, in a highly consumerist society wherepeople strive to acquire more possessions, it isironic that in manufacturing consumer products,lean is in.The concept of zero-waste does not only circulateamong ecological zones, it seems. Lean

manufacturing is a new buzzword in the industrialworld which is rapidly gaining ubiquitousfollowing. Lean manufacturing is a systematicapproach to eliminate waste in the productionprocess with the end goal of satisfyingcustomers.Waste is anything that a consumer refuses to payfor. The types of wastes in a manufacturing systeminclude the following:(a) overproduction or producing more, earlier orfaster than required(b) waiting for machines to process(c) inventory or work in process because of largelot production or processes with long cycle time(d) unnecessary processing(e) transportation which hardly adds values toproducts(f) excessive motion of workers, machines andtransport due to inappropriate location of toolsand parts

(g) making defective products and(h) underutilizing people.The focus of lean manufacturing is to minimize theconsumption of resources that adds no value to aproduct. As such, it is a process-focusedproduction system which minimizes costs,maximizes customer options and ensures highquality and fast delivery of products andservices.The concept of lean manufacturing originated inJapan where, after WWII, it was necessary formanufacturers to develop a new, low costmanufacturing process.Unlike their western counterparts, Japanesemanufacturers needed torebuild after the war andfaced declining human, material and financialresources. The first leaders to create leanmanufacturing systems were Eiji Toyoda, TaiichiOhno and Shingeo Shingo of Toyota Motor Company.

In the 1990 抯, the concept of lean manufacturingwas popularized in the U.S. by a study conductedby the Massachusetts Institute of Technology onthe movement of mass production toward the morestreamlined Japanese production style asdescribed in the book entitled The Machine ThatChanged the World (Womack, Jones & Ross).This depicted essential elements which are usedin lean manufacturing systems. The term lean wasadopted because these methods used less humaneffort, capital investment, production space,materials and time in all operation stages.All U.S. manufacturing businesses eventuallyapplied lean manufacturing because ofcompetition among U.S. and Japanese automakersover the last two decades.Lean manufacturing systems recognize the factthat the value of a product is defined solely by

the customer. Customers?needs must be met at aspecific time and price. The nitty-gritty ofproduct operations is of no importance tocustomers.This realization forces companies tocomprehensively analyze business processes.To apply lean manufacturing is to understandbasic activities required to produce a particularproduct and to optimize the entire process fromthe point of view of the customer. This isimportant as it helps identify activities thatclearly add value, those have no value-added andcannot be avoided and those that have novalue-added and can be scrapped altogether.Transition to a lean manufacturing system doesnot happen overnight. Lean manufacturingrequires every level of organization to have acomplete understanding of its basic principlesand execution processes. Widespread orientations

must be set to prepare and motivate people and tomake them understand the need to switch to leanmanufacturing.After that, a mentality for continuousimprovement is necessary to reach company goals.This means that the company aims for incrementalimprovement of products, and processes over time.For this, employee involvement and an atmosphereof experimentation are essential.Decision-making and system development must bedelegated. Willingness to take risks must beencouraged.Improvements must be measured according toresults vis-?vis macro level targets not onnumber of activities undertaken. Because of thecomplicated nature of lean manufacturing systems,there is a need to execute pilot projects beforespreading the culture across the organization.

The number of manufacturers attempting to becomelean is increasing fast. Companies that havefully implemented lean manufacturing systems arerare. Although perfection is impossible, it is agoal that lean manufacturers strive for becauseit helps them be more vigilant of wastefulpractices.