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9 lean manufacturing principles
9 lean manufacturing principles
Lean manufacturing and economical benefit
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Lean manufacturing plays a major role in our economy and yet it is almost unheard of outside manufacturing. It is important to know lean manufacturing relates to our individual lives and how we can all benefit from this concept. With current slow economic recovery, it is imperative that we find avenues that consumers can get through these difficult times, but also to implement the lessons-learned values into future thinking. The rising cost of goods and the unemployment rate high, lean manufacturing is helping to keep cost low and jobs in America where they belong.
When we think of process manufacturing or the assembly line many credit Henry Ford for this concept. The introduction of continuous process in the late 1890’s was to produce a product from start to finish on an assembly line and the concept was revolutionary; the people didn’t move but the product did. Ford’s financial return from this successful concept meant offering a less expensive product without sacrificing superior quality. Then in the 1940’s Taiichi Ohno, a mechanical engineer for Toyota Corporation located in Japan is credited for the development of the “Toyota Production System”, also known as Lean Manufacturing, delved deeper into Henry Ford’s concept further developed the concept of motion and material flow in the manufacturing process.
This system would further analyze the waste of movement and would take a closer look at reducing or even eliminating excess motion or movement to retrieve tools or product while manufacturing a product. For example, if a person has groceries and needed to get the bags into the house, it is a shorter distance to park in a garage where a person is closer to the door than parking at the street and walk the great distance t...
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...t people back to work and focus again on the American dream and plan our financial security well into retirement age.
Works Cited
A Brief History of Lean Manufacturing. n.d. Paul Swift. 19 March 2012 .
Davidson, Paul. 'Lean' manufacturing helps companies survive recession. Ed. Brent Jones. 3 March 2009. 19 March 2012 .
Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox. The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. New York: North River Press, 1984.
Rosen, James. "'Lean' Manufacturing Takes Root in U.S." 29 April 2011. FoxNews.com. 19 March 2012 .
Sato, Tomaichi. "Production Management & Planning: Tomoichi Sato." Lean Manufacturing Japan. Warren Harrod. n.d. 2.
The method of Lean Six Sigma is the combination of two business techniques that includes Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma. Lean manufacturing focuses on improving the flow of the organization by training highly skilled employees to increase the overall speed while Six Sigma focuses on improving current performance and overall accuracy. In most cases, blending both Lean and Six Sigma can be costly; however the end result can have create an organization that focuses on quality, accuracy, and speed to meet the goal which is profitability.
In conclusion, “a study of the average benefits among US manufacturers over a five-year time frame revealed 90% reduction in cycle time, 70% reduction in inventory, 50% reduction in labor costs, and 80% reduction in space requirements” (Russell & Taylor, 2011, p. 740). There are many benefits to embracing Lean, and interest is
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...
In the years leading up to the industrial era, manual labor was required across the country in order to produce goods such as wheat, steel, or other raw materials. In order to create these, skilled workers were needed so they could produce the materials. While the materials that the skilled workers made were of a high quality, there was a drawback; in order to make such high quality materials, companies needed to pay these workers more than the average worker. In response to this, companies set out to find a way to make more product for cheaper. A prime example of how they did this is when they created the Bessemer process. This is a machine/process that converts iron into steel via injection of air into the raw iron. The process is credited with launching the steel industry and cheapening the cost of production because it was no longer necessary to employ high skilled workers (Document B). With this, the need for highly paid skilled workers was no longer necessary because steel companies could employ low skill workers and pr...
Lean Six Sigma is a methodology that creates processes within an organization to cut waste and improve the company’s performance. However, studies have shown that over the past decade applying Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma can create problems for companies financially and potential problems for employees. Companies should take great care before implementing a Lean Six Sigma solution because in some instances, going lean can do more harm than good both financially for the organization as well as destroying employee loyalty and moral.
This report focuses on Toyota Motor Corporation, a Japanese automotive manufacturer which developed the concept of lean manufacturing to increase the efficiency of its production by reducing the stock holding level. The basis of Toyota Production System (TPS) is the sheer elimination of waste. TPS includes standardization of work, uninterrupted work flows, direct links between suppliers and customers, and continuous improvement based on the scientific method (Spear and Bowen, 1999). The four main concepts of TPS are Just in Time (JIT), automation, flexible workforce and capitalizing on workers suggestion. Also, Toyota uses the pull inventory control system where the orders come from the customers and the line reacts to the demand. Ohno (1988) formulated Kanban as a ‘medium to pull material from an upstream station and manage product flow’. This has given Toyota its competitive advantage through the years.
The procedure of Lean Manufacturing has been the principle concerns and issues of numerous manufacturing companies all through the world. Numerous procedures paving the way to lean manufacturing have affected this significantly, for example, Interchangeable parts, Just in Time Production, the Ford Assembly line, and the Toyota Production Systems.
With the objective of manufacturing the vehicles in the most effective way and supplying the vehicles to the customers on time. The Toyota Production System (TPS) governs on two theories, namely "Jidoka" implying humanized automation that discovers process glitches and product shortcomings so that the equipment stops straight away averting further flawed production. The second concept of "Just-in-Time"(JIT) shows in a continuous flow, each procedure will only yield the fixed quantity as required by the succeeding process. During the commencement of Toyota, the market demand was at the peak. They touched a limit where they couldn 't meet these escalating demands. In a conventional way, they positioned all the machines together. However, after the implementation of production simulator with all the support from the people and management, they altered the layout of the entire plant as per their process flow. This made their work easier in terms of carrying parts back and forth in between the processes. With the vision of multi-tasking, each worker was executing on more than one machine. These lead to the
In brief, Kellogg’s is the world’s leading breakfast cereal manufacturer (The Times 100, 2010). Kellogg’s has manufacturing plants in the UK, Canada, Australia, Latin America and Asia (The Times 100, 2010), thus Levy (2007) settles Kellogg’s must have established an international supply chain as a response to the globalisation in which needs to act responsibly. Furthermore, this essay will also demonstrate Kellogg’s lean production system, and how exploits that. Interestingly, Krajewski et al. (2009) has drawn attention to the fact that lean production is an operations system, which assists to exploit the value of the company, in this case, Kellogg’s activities by eliminating waste. Referencing to Paton et al. (2011) agrees lean production is based on a series of practices which mostly seen at Kellogg’s as a management approach, namely; just in time (JIT) which will be included in this essay. The rationale behind the choice is, The Times 100 (2010) highlights; Kellogg’s lean production enables the rearrangement of processes and removes waste. As it is known that in the supply chain, there are parts where waste can be found (Paton et...
The company that the author has chosen to compare his own organization with is the Toyota motor company. The Toyota Company has become a renowned leader in the area of quality management. Toyota’s theory of “keep it lean” has kept the company running at a level that eclipses the industry standards.
The Goal of any business is to obtain maximum results in the most efficient manner while at the same time providing your customer with the quality product they desire. Often times this process is made difficult with waste or anything that clogs the process unnecessarily. Henry Ford aimed to eliminate this waste through looking at his manufacturing pro...
[1] Goldratt, Eliyahu M. and Cox, Jeff (2004). The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement. Retrieved from http:// ishare.edu.sina.com.cn
...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.
Supply Chain Digest, 2010. Supply Chain News: Is “Lean” to Blame for Toyota’s Recall Issues?
My first interest in Supply Chain Management resulted from my experience. Ever since I was young, I wanted to understand not just the ‘how’ of Mechanical engineering problems, but also why machines worked at the fundamental level. In particular, I was interested in learning the application of experimental techniques and principles governing Physics to solve problems. Therefore, I found the pursuit of B.E. in Mechanical Engineering almost a necessity, given my need to satiate my curiosity to gain deeper knowledge of that area.