Discover the power of Lean manufacturing and how the production method was designed to help improve quality and customer satisfaction, eliminate waste and reduce costs.
The rising success of Lean Manufacturing has been well-recognized in businesses for years now. Its core strategy for cultivating a culture of continuous improvement for business growth has been adopted by organizations from all sectors. With its techniques and tools to reduce waste and increase quality, the Lean manufacturing concept has been yielding notable results.
This practical guide covers the Lean manufacturing principles, how its history unfolded, the goals and benefits it can bring, and how to apply it in practice.
Lean manufacturing is a production method designed to help reduce both the time for production, as well as response times to customers and suppliers. The strategy aims to increase efficiency by eliminating waste, optimizing processes, and cutting costs. The practice allows for reducing waste and inventory costs by producing only what’s in demand and not overstocking. By reducing the production time, the method improves the productivity rate and helps increase profits.
The method, also known as lean production or just-in-time production (JIT), dates back to the late 1940s when Toyota developed its operating model called Toyota Production System (TPS). Later on, in 1988, John Krafcik established the term “lean”.
The emergence of the lean manufacturing principles is attributed to James Womack and Daniel Jones, who defined the method’s 5 principles in 1996: value specification; mapping the value stream; creating value flow; establishing a pull system; pursuing perfection. The principles forming a production cycle are the heart of Lean philosophy and Lean thinking.
Originating in the manufacturing world, today the method is successfully applied as a management method across industries and domains.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) or “The Toyota Way” is an operational model which emerged in the early 20th century in Japan as a management system for organizing manufacturing and logistics processes. The backbone of TPS is the just-in-time production (JIT) system, created by Mr. Taiichi Ohno (a Japanese industrial engineer and businessman).
The two Lean pillars of the Toyota Way are continuous improvement and respect for people. They are foundational to the understanding of what lean manufacturing is all about and where its principles are derived from.
The core purpose of just-in-time production as a part of TPS is to remove all wasteful activities from the processes. By reducing and eliminating non-value-adding activities (wastes) from production, the method aims to achieve continuous improvement. For instance, if you work in an environment where changeover times are significant, and there are multiple job classifications, applying the JIT system would mean looking for ways to reduce changeover times and eliminating job classifications. By doing so, you not only provide greater flexibility for the people, but you are also empowering their ability to use their full potential instead of doing the same thing over and over.
Understanding the five principles of Lean management is crucial to successfully applying Lean. They include:
The five principles of Lean management
At its core, Lean manufacturing is defined as the production strategy to reduce times for delivery and response to customers’ inquiries. It does that by eliminating all processes which don’t bring value.
Lean Manufacturing requires a few steps to be followed for successful implementation. Through the use of techniques such as mapping the value stream and establishing a pull-based production system, you are ready to start practicing Lean.
Value stream mapping is the Lean practice of visualizing all necessary steps in a work process for delivering value to the customer. The technique allows you to represent every stage and work item in your process visually. By doing so, through value stream mapping you can easily identify and eliminate wasteful steps and activities and redesign your process to achieve a healthy flow of work.
Establishing a pull system is one of the Lean manufacturing principles designed to help reduce waste from the production processes. The term refers to committing to work only when there is an actual demand for it. The practice of pull allows you to optimize your resources, reduce overstocking and deliver faster.
Continuous improvement is a foundational part of the Lean culture. The commitment to always be on the lookout for better ways to do work is an essential part of what Lean production teaches. All organizational efforts are focused to increase customer satisfaction, eliminate waste, and optimize work processes through constant examination of how to process work. Continuous improvement allows you to improve the quality and flow of work, simplifying work processes, reducing waste such as defects, among other benefits.
Among the most prominent objectives of the Lean manufacturing method is creating efficiency through continuously examining the current processes and improving them. To achieve this, Lean has 4 different goals.
Before jumping to implement Lean manufacturing in your business, analyzing the advantages of the production methodology is crucial to align your expectations with reality. Along its evolution path, the method has proven its potential to bring:
Once the advantages are cleared out, examining the disadvantages of Lean manufacturing will remove all doubt about whether the method would fit your needs or not. Some of the most common drawbacks of Lean are related to:
Eliminating waste is an integral part of what Lean manufacturing actually is. Following the Lean guidelines means eliminating, reducing, and simplifying work processes. There are seven types of waste of Lean that should be eliminated from the workflow through continuous improvement.
Overproduction is a type of waste in Lean manufacturing that refers to producing or generating work in excess of what is in demand which leads to additional costs for transportation, resources, waiting time, rework, etc.
The inventory type of waste is related to an excessive overstocking of materials or resources to meet unexpected customer demands. However, in most cases, the end result of this inventory is increased storage costs and no added value for customers.
The motion waste type refers to any unnecessary movement of people or equipment which affects production time, the safety of the working environment, and workplace organization. This can include moving, lifting, reaching, etc.
Defects are a type of Lean manufacturing waste that refers to any product or service which is not fit for use and requires rework or scrapping altogether. All defects lead inevitably to additional costs and do not add value to the customers.
The waste refers to all excess work that is not required by the customer and leads to additional costs and spending of resources. The result is an increased end price a customer may not be willing to pay for. This can be an additional product functionality or adding more steps in a workflow process.
Waiting is a type of waste in Lean manufacturing that refers to any type of service which is not in motion: waiting on materials or suppliers, equipment waiting to be fixed, people waiting on approval, etc.
Transport waste in Lean manufacturing refers to any excessive movement of materials or resources which turns out costly, can negatively affect the quality, and does not add value to the end product.
Originating as a way to reduce waste and improve production times in the manufacturing world, the production methodology is nowadays successfully applied in a number of domains. Thanks to its universally relevant attributes: continuous improvement and respect for people, we can see today lean manufacturing thriving in:
Lean manufacturing offers the use of multiple tools and techniques to achieve the goals you set out to achieve. Depending on your business environment, the most suitable Lean manufacturing tools may differ. Here’s a handful of the most popular, useful, and widely applied tools:
Even though it originates from the automotive industry, today, Lean production principles expand well outside the manufacturing realm. The application of the Lean manufacturing concept can take a variety of forms in today’s reality. Here are a few examples:
The difference between Lean and Six Sigma lies in the different approaches they use to achieve their goals. While Lean focuses on removing waste from a process and achieving improvement, Six Sigma seeks to identify and remove causing issues by using more statistical and graphical tools.
Despite this, both methods seek to improve production processes by detecting defects on time, eliminating waste, and providing the best quality. They successfully complement each other in identifying the defects' root causes and together form a data-driven approach called Lean Six Sigma.
The evolutionary nature of Lean manufacturing offers extensive literature, both theoretical and practical. Some of the best books for lean manufacturing are listed below:
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The Lean manufacturing production method is designed to help reduce both the time for production and response times to customers and from suppliers. The method relies on five key principles.
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