Many businesses are today adopting the lean manufacturing methodology. This move is to help improve efficiency and productivity by getting rid of all wasteful practices. All this not only helps generate more revenue for your company but also improves your customer’s needs. As a result, this enhances your brand’s reputation and helps you have a competitive edge over other companies.
But there’s a lot to learn about lean manufacturing to maximize its benefits, such as reduced costs, improved quality, and greater production. That said, here’s a comprehensive guide to lean manufacturing.
What Is Lean Manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing is an industrial system designed to eliminate waste from a value stream or manufacturing system without affecting productivity. It is a methodology that originated from the Toyota Motor Company and was initially known as the Toyota Production System.
The concept of lean manufacturing was created and introduced to remove anything that doesn’t add value to the customer and their end product during the manufacturing process, which includes supplier management, logistics, and customer delivery. This process helped the company to enhance maximum value for their clients while minimizing overheads and costs of production.
The system became very successful, allowing Toyota to manufacture cars faster than its competitors while enhancing the quality of its product and maximizing profit. Later on, James Womack, a research director at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), went to Japan, studied Toyota Motor Company operations, and launched the lean manufacturing movement across the globe.
How Does Lean Manufacturing Work?
Lean manufacturing starts by identifying different types of waste in a manufacturing plant, which often includes waiting time, overproduction, excess inventory, transportation, and defects, before returning to where the waste originated. Afterward, such waste is managed to boost the quality and productivity of the process. For instance, by having materials closer to the manufacturing plant, the lean manufacturing principle aids in reducing transportation costs while reducing excess inventory and streamlining the manufacturing process.
In addition, the lean manufacturing system adopts the 5S methodology, a systematic form of visual management for a more organized, uncluttered, efficient, and safer work environment, which can be seen to be applied in various lean case studies. The 5S philosophy includes:
- Sort: This entails sorting materials, tools, and other components and determining which aren’t needed to perform tasks. This means you should take the time to eliminate unnecessary items in your operations from your workspace.
- Set in order: The workspace has to be organized efficiently to enhance productivity. This involves strategically storing materials for quick and convenient access for your employees.
- Shine: While sorting and organizing tools and materials needed for your operations can be a strategic approach, your team must also take proactive measures to ensure the work environment remains clean and orderly.
- Standardize: Having standards regarding the three S’s discussed above creates systematic protocols that your organization must comply with. You can implement schedules of tasks to be done and a list of guidelines they must follow.
- Sustain: This refers to having the discipline to be committed to the four S’s above. Encourage your employees to practice such principles.
Suppose your business is in the food industry. You can learn more about how you can apply lean manufacturing in your operations by checking out this video.
What Are The Core Principles of Lean Manufacturing?
To give you a better understanding of what lean manufacturing is all about, here are the five core principles of this approach that you can implement in your production:
- Identify customer value: This first principle of lean manufacturing seeks to pinpoint the ideal output based on your client’s perspective and preferences. Customer value helps reduce cost and waste from processes to arrive at optimal pricing for your products and generate the highest revenue. And to create value, your focus should be on removing features that aren’t useful to your customer’s needs. Your focus should be on creating products that satisfy your client’s needs.
- Map value stream: Value stream refers to the whole supply chain of a finished product, right from the search for materials and production process to transportation. Mapping the value stream aims to streamline the production process by determining and eliminating unnecessary waste and looking for areas for improvement.
- Establish flow: This principle aims to avoid wastage by removing anything that can interfere with the smooth movement of items from production to shipping. This smooth movement covers all factors, from equipment, materials, shipping, and people.
- Implement a pull system: This fourth principle states you should only start buying tools or working on something new if there’s demand from your clients. This lowers the risk of overproduction or underproduction and makes the most of your usable workspace.
- Strive for perfection: This last lean manufacturing principle entails constantly looking for ways to improve your operations. And to do this, your focus needs to be on pinpointing all the problems to enhance performance and minimize waste. It also involves standardizing the lean manufacturing process to allow for increased productivity, better quality products, reduced costs, and higher efficiency.
Waste Types in Lean Manufacturing System
As mentioned, a significant part of lean management is eliminating wasteful actions that can impede the workflow and overall productivity of a manufacturing company. These wastes can be categorized into three types- Muda, Mura, and Muda.
- Muda: These are wastes created from work with no added value to the final product. Usually, they result from unnecessary and redundant steps during the manufacturing process. You’ll be able to prevent Muda by understanding the value stream of the manufacturing process.
- Mura: These are wastes that come from demand fluctuations. They are associated with the customer’s overall demand. However, Mura can also refer to internal product demand at different points during the manufacturing process. Implementing a demand-based system can alleviate this unevenness or irregularities in your production.
- Muri: These wastes result from overworking equipment or workers and are often associated with poor resource allocation. The best way to combat muri is by minimizing Muda. Business owners can also standardize processes to streamline the tasks of employees.
What Are The Benefits of a Lean Manufacturing System?
The business world is very competitive, so manufacturers are always looking for new ways to maintain an edge against their rivals in the industry and optimize their manufacturing process and businesses’ efficiency and performance by eliminating unnecessary costs.
With a lean manufacturing process, companies can minimize waste across all areas of their operations, allowing them to focus on the customer aspect. Furthermore, here are some of the notable benefits of implementing the lean manufacturing system in your production:
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Optimizes Capital
Lean manufacturing is a systematic management technique that aims to streamline operations and deliver quality products while promoting cost-effectiveness. With this approach, companies can achieve more without requiring much time, costs, and even labor. Essentially, optimizing the value chain aids in preventing any unnecessary capital outlay in equipment and machinery until it becomes essential.
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Boosts Worker Satisfaction And Empowerment
While it’s normal for employees to be bombarded with various tasks during operations, eliminating unnecessary activities and rework goes a long way in boosting the production flow’s efficiency and employee morale. With the time saved, they can focus on other tasks. Adopting lean manufacturing principles in your operations can also promote work-life balance among workers and help improve their satisfaction.
On the other hand, when applying the lean approach to your company’s production flow, transparency and involving your employees in the process are critical to ensure they accept the new method. That said, conduct meetings to brief them on the changes you’re looking to implement, so they can feel supported. Moreover, doing so allows them to feel valued and empowered, leading to better engagement.
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Enhances Production Quality
The industry is constantly evolving, and for your company to remain competitive and profitable, finding ways to innovate your operations should be one of your priorities. This includes streamlining workflow to save time and costs and sustainably delivering quality products to your customers. This is where implementing the lean approach comes in.
In addition, lean manufacturing systems are designed to emphasize teamwork and perfection. As a result, your staff can be empowered to identify, stop and rectify defective manufacturing processes. With this in place, the plant manager can reduce scrap production while enhancing product quality.
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Improves Customer Satisfaction
Lean manufacturing aims to improve customer value with a flexible, faster production process and high-quality products. Furthermore, it allows you to increase client loyalty and grow your revenue continuously as it allows you to understand what your clients perceive as a valuable and high-quality product.
Implementing Lean Manufacturing In Your Company
To aid your company when implementing the lean methodology in your plant effectively, here are various techniques and tools you can use:
- Kaizen: This constant improvement can be considered a technique as it allows you to track and document the whole manufacturing process and monitor staff feedback on all their tasks and responsibilities.
- Kanban board: This is a vital tool for visualizing the manufacturing processes. Digital board can be used as it updates in real-time, allowing you to monitor various processes in your operations directly and tackle any challenges from a holistic point.
- Measuring processes and tasks: This is a critical technique in lean manufacturing as it allows you to evaluate changes and set benchmarks for your plant. By performing this technique, you’ll collect data indicating areas that require improvement. As a manufacturer, you’ll be able to keep track of metrics such as cycle time, lead time, yield, and rate. This is vital as any data that offers insight into the manufacturing process is highly valuable.
Takeaway
Lean manufacturing is a critical methodology worth implementing in your operations to boost waste reduction and the overall efficiency of your processes. This guide offered insights that can help you understand the vital principles of lean manufacturing, how the lean approach can benefit your organization, and how to implement them.
