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Lean implementation challenges essay
Lean supply chain case study
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Although lean thinking is the best solution that a business organization can ever have, the implementation of some of its strategies can be a challenge to a few businesses. Firstly, some employees are likely to leave the company in the advanced level of the lean implementation process. This may be due to the pressure of short time goals and limits that the employees are given to ensure that the lean philosophy is followed to the letter. As a recommendation, managers should be patient with lean thinking implementation, as it is a long-term solution. On the other hand, a company may have some complexity in the process of implementing lean thinking strategies, which are spread throughout the entire value chain, but invisible to the managers. Since the strategies are too focused on responding to the requirements of the customer, they may cause several disturbances in the system. These issues may be in the form of incorrect forecasts, inability of suppliers to respond to rush deliveries, a low amount of or excess inventory, and the work pressure of finishing tasks. Consequently, to overcome the challenges, all managers should be trained on how best to implement the lean philosophy. Lean thinking should be introduced as an independent course in business management colleges to ensure that all future managers are conversant with the philosophy. Lean thinking is a methodology by which work is organized within a company or factory, with the main objective being the elimination of waste from all business activities. According to the philosophy, every person in a company or in any defined enterprise should strive to eliminate waste continuously with an aim of creating value through a customer-focused process. Lean thinking is definitely the ... ... middle of paper ... ...ources in the company, but adds no meaningful worth to both the customer and the organization. The success of most renowned companies is due to a thorough implementation of superb lean thinking strategies. Elimination of waste is probably the most significant challenge in every business organization. Waste in this case refers to any activity or process that consumes a lot of time and resources, but adds no meaningful worth to both the customer and the organization. Waste can be in the form of backlogs, loss of ideas, incomplete work, long queues and unreliable machines, unnecessary movement of employees, excess inventory, and over-processing. These are just a few examples of waste, which every organization struggles to eradicate. The most appropriate solution to this challenge is the adoption of a new technology or philosophy, which is referred to as lean thinking.
In Sheryl Sandberg’s essay “Lean In: What You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?”, she talks about how women are afraid to strive for leadership that men pursue for. She mentions how women are afraid to be leaders even though they outperform men academically in their degrees. Women are discouraged to enroll in leadership in the workforce because “they are less valued in the workplace” and “overwhelmingly stocked with men”(Sandberg 646). More importantly, Sandberg points out that the reason women don’t seek for high positioned jobs is that they aren’t “ambitious” as much as men. Not being ambitious allows women to not show themselves that they don’t have a strong desire to obtain the highest leadership. Women aren’t as ambitious than men because they
Lean manufacturing refers to systematic identification and elimination of waste through CI processes in pursuit of perfection (Khan et al. 2013; Yang & Yang 2013). Lean production is now used worldwide in manufacturing plants to eliminate waste from all ar...
Creating a process is not always the answer to every organization. Organizations attempting to reduce waste may find themselves stuck trying to understand precisely where vital financial cuts need to take place. Variability can actually prevent Lean Six Sigma from working in a business environment and can sometimes impact flow in a negative way (Locher, 2007, p. 54). As demand in many organizations can be unpredictable, many employees will find the need to multitask in order to get the job done. Multitasking itself creates highly skilled employees that are required in a lean environment. Companies that employ individuals who are capable of multitasking benefit from these employees as the organization see’s a high degree of flexibility and responsiveness with a reduction in operational costs. Companies looking to cut waste in an environment where employees are already stretched thin by performing multiple duties and tasks beyond their job description could find its employees becoming even more overworked and see a larger degradation of performance due to understaffing in an effort to cut costs. These cost-cutting measures could actually do more harm than good to an organization.
The development and implementation of Toyota’s lean production system has set a benchmark in the automobile industry and inspired many other companies in the automobile industry and other industries as well to adopt it.
According to Christopher and Towill (2001), there are mainly three ways to combine lean and leagile. The first hybrid approach is the Pareto rule, which means that the dominant 20% of products should use leanness and make to stock. While the remaining 80% products with less share of revenue should use agility. The second hybrid approach is about using lean approach for the base level of demand, while for the peak season or flexible demand, manufacturer can use agility
One of the main objectives of an organization is to beat its counter part in our possible way. In order for an organization to insure that they must be good at leading, planning, organizing and controlling their resources and materials to accomplish performance objectives. In other words management. There are four main types of management, Classical, Behavioural, Quantitative and now the Modern Approach to Management. The Modern Approach states that there is no one good way of management. A successful organization utilizes all the types of management. A good example of this is the movie Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman as Joe Clark, the protagonist of the movie. Joe is a very talented teacher, who takes a lot of pride in his work, but due to certain events (budget cuts), he has to make some very key decisions upon his future at East Side High, New Jersey. After the resignation of Joe Clark, things go back to worse at East Side High, so after 20 years Joe is once again called upon to take the duty of the principal of this once great school. His goal was to accomplish a 75% average on the state's basic skills test. This goal might be easy at any school, but then again East Side High was not just another school. The previous year the score was 33%. The school was filled with drug dealer, crime, graffiti and other things. Therefore it required a miracle to increase the school's literacy average by approximately 40%.
The Lean Startup method is a scientific approach to makes startups fast respondent to customers wants and needs. Throgh Lean startup method entrepereneurs know managing startups effectively in many aspects and also the time to pivot
6. Stick to the Knitting: This is about the company focusing on doing what it does best. 7. Simple Form, Lean Staff: This can be hard particularly in large
Manufacturing businesses and business leaders need to increase their focus on key success factors such as: innovation, productivity improvement, investment in people & skills, and funding. Innovation is not just about retention and development, or the latest technology. It’s also about practical and efficient problem solving and business transformation. In the manufacturing industry, this can be achieved by: refining or exploring new supply and distribution channels, establishing new business offerings, developing leaner organizational arrangements, improving processes, providing a better customer experience, and accessing green, clean technology – high on the agenda for environmentally conscious customers (Performance, 2011)
Lean manufacturing and just-in-time processing are great business strategies that can severely stress a supply chain. The supply chain and supply chain management is a critical operations management element for any major company to succeed and remain competitive in the global market. The supply chain is one of many pieces critical to maximizing value to the end customer and requires close management to minimize external impacts. If a company is relying on another company to supply the raw materials needed for their production line, then impacts to this other company could impact their supply chain. Careful risk management is needed to optimize performance. As a company expands into global markets and global suppliers, this risk and management challenge is multiplied. The global nature of the company could impact important activities such as transportation, funds transfers, suppliers, distributors, accounting and information sharing. Disruption to the supply chain can significantly reduce revenue, cut market share, inflate costs and threaten production. A major disruption would have obvious impacts to profit, but could have additional intangible impacts to the credibility of the company if products are not delivered on time.
...hould be noted that the process of Lean management was first applied in the area of manufacturing. Some analysts tell that his particular business management process came out of the Toyota Company’s production system of cars. It should be noted that the Japanese are very much inclined to adopt anything that would reduce costs and eliminate wastes. Hence, it is no wonder that the Japanese are known for their simplicity and design and the minimalist view on things. However, nowadays has evolved from the area of manufacturing and could now be applied in the area of management. Before moving forward to the essential principles of Lean management, it would be better to clearly define it first. The said book by Bradley did not really give a definite and concise definition of Lean. Instead, he tried to define this said business management concept though examples.
Eastman Kodak has realized savings in the millions in transportation and inventory costs by implementing lean logistics. Kodak starting developing lean logistics in 2002 by establishing a cross docks to improve the flow of materials moving from its suppliers to its warehouses. Kodak picked three of its closes suppliers to try the lean logistics out. One main truck would go around to the suppliers and pick up supplies every two days and bring it back to the cross dock where it would be moved to the correct department. This one act has led to a $20 million inventory cost reduction because there is nothing being stored, and the shipping costs are low because they use their own trucks.
Lean production is an approach to production developed in Japan. Toyota, the Japanese car manufacturer was the company that invented lean production. The whole aim of lean production is to reduce the quantity of resources used up in production. By doing this, lean production uses less of - factory space, materials, stocks, suppliers, labour, capital and time. Lean production reduces costs, increases efficiency and output and improves motivation. Lean production involves using a range of practices designed to reduce waste and improve productivity and quality.
Porter argues that no firm can provide value in all the ways that people wish value to be delivered, so they should select one strategy; cost leadership, differentiation or focus. (Robbins & Barnwell, 2002)
From this initiative, Toyota managed to widen its competitive edge by employing fewer employees in the car production with a small number of flaw products. The main idea is to fulfill the internal or external customer’s wants. Through lean thinking, it is hoped that nonmanufacturing company’s can provide value to the customers with minimum cost, effort and can save time. Thus, it will lead to improved performance and optimum utilization of the company’s additional capacity and resources. Lean Thinking Category Waste Health Care Examples.