The following steps should be implemented to create the ideal lean manufacturing system:
- Design a simple manufacturing system
- Recognize that there is always room for improvement
- Continuously improve the lean manufacturing system design (Ohno 1988)
Design a Simple Manufacturing System
A fundamental principle of lean manufacturing is demand‐based flow manufacturing. In this type of production setting, inventory is only pulled through each production center when it is needed to meet a customer’s order. The benefits of this goal include the following:
- Decreased cycle time
- Less inventory
- Increased productivity
- Increased capital equipment utilization
Continuous Improvement
A continuous improvement mindset is essential to reach the company’s goals. The term “continuous improvement” means incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace functionality, customer service, or product performance. Lean is founded on the concept of continuous and incremental improvements on product and process while eliminating redundant activities. “The value of adding activities are simply only those things the customer is willing to pay for, everything else is waste, and should be eliminated, simplified, reduced, or integrated.” Improving the flow of material through new ideal system layouts at the customer’s required rate would reduce waste in material movement and inventory (Bicheno and Holweg 2009).
Measure
Overall equipment effectiveness is a set of performance metrics that fit well in a lean environment. Also, principal members of technical staff (PMTS), methods‐time measurement, cost analysis, and perhaps time study can be used to evaluate the wastes and IT effectiveness in the operational processes. For example, Jun‐Ing Ker and Yichuan Wang analyze two prescribing technologies, namely no carbon required and digital scanning technologies to quantify the advantages of the medication ordering, transcribing, and dispensing process in a multi‐hospital health system. With comparison between these two technologies, the statistical analysis results show a significant reduction on process times by adopting digital scanning technology. The results indicated a reduction of 54.5% in queue time, 32.4% in order entry time, 76.9% in outgoing delay time, and 67.7% in outgoing transit time with the use of digital scanning technology (Ker et al. 2014).
Implementation Dilemma
One criticism of lean is that its practitioners may focus on tools and methodologies rather than on the philosophy and culture of lean. Consequently, adequate management is needed in order to avoid failed implementation of lean methodologies (Hopp and Spearman 2008). Another pitfall is that management decides what solution to use without understanding the true problem and without consulting shop floor personnel. As a result, lean implementations often look good to the manager but fail to improve the situation (Hopp and Spearman 2008).
In addition, many of the popular lean initiatives, coming from the TPS, are solutions to specific problems that Toyota was facing. Toyota, having an undesired current condition, determined what the end state would look like. Through much study, the gap was closed, which resulted in many of the tools in place today. Often, when a tool is implemented outside of TPS, a company believes that the solution lay specifically within one of the popular lean initiatives. The tools which were the solution to a specific problem for a specific company may not be able to be applied in exactly the same manner as designed. Thus, the solution does not fit the problem and a temporary solution is created vs. the actual root cause (Ohno 1988).
The lean philosophy aims to reduce costs while optimizing and improving performance. VSM and 5S are the most common approaches companies take on their first steps toward making their organization leaner. Lean actions can be focused on the specific logistics processes, or cover the entire supply chain. Conducting a gap analysis determines the company’s “must take” steps to improve the value stream and achieve the objective. Based on that evaluation, the improvement group conducts the failure mode effects analysis, in order to identify and prevent risk factors. It is crucial for front‐line workers to be involved in VSM activities since they understood the process and can directly increase the efficiency. Although the impact may be small and limited for each lean activity, implementing a series of small improvements incrementally along the supply chain can bring forth enhanced productivity (Merrill 2013).
After adopting the lean approach, both managers and employees experience change. Therefore, decisive leaders are needed when starting on a lean journey. There are several requirements to control the lean journey. First and most importantly, experts recommend that the organization have its own lean plan, developed by the lean leadership. In other words, the lean team provides suggestions for the leader who then makes the actual decisions about what to implement. Second, coaching is recommended when the organization starts off on its lean journey. They will impart their knowledge and skills to shop floor staff and the lean implementation will be much more efficient. Third, the metrics or measurements used for measuring lean and improvements are extremely important. It will enable collection of the data required for informed decision‐making by a leader. One cannot successfully implement lean without sufficient aptitude at measuring the process and outputs. To control and improve results going forward, one must see and measure, i.e. map, what is happening now (Ohno 1988).
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