Understanding Lean Manufacturing

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Understanding Lean Manufacturing
Anthea Johnson Writer at Knowledge-peak.com
creates content to support http//www.knowledge-pe
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The industrys concern to supply a product or a
service with excellence has opened an innumerable
list of actions that need to be directed
improving productivity, reducing wastes, and
training the personnel, and create a culture of
quality. Mass production is one of the essential
qualities of manufacturing and it should focus on
the performance of production processes, a
distraction can result in bad quality products.
It is important to have senior management that
cares about providing world-class processes and
high-quality products, these companies spend
resources and time to update their staff on
various methods and tools such as lean
manufacturing. The tools of lean manufacturing
are called lean tools which include 5s, Kanban,
Kaizen, Kaikaku, Jidoka, Heinkunka, Push and Pull
System, Poka-Yoke, SMED, Standard Work, TPM,
Value Stream Mapping, Visual Factory,
Manufacturing Cells, etc.

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Also the administrative staff updates
communication, supervision, time management,
teamwork skills between senior management and
members of the organization. Lean manufacturing
is the systematic elimination of waste. It is a
Japanese method focused on 3Ms of Japanese
words Muda (waste), Mura (inconsistency), and
Muri (unreasonableness). Generally, the waste can
be divided into seven categories Delays, early
and excess production, making defective items,
inventory, movement and transport, poor process
design, and inefficient performance of a
process. Lean manufacturing is a combination of
multiple tools to help to remove activities that
do not add value to the process, service, and
product by increasing the value of each activity,
aimed to improve operations, and eliminate waste.

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• Lean manufacturing focuses to reorganize the
  processes of waste reduction, minimizing steps,
  and thereby reducing costs.
• There are subsystems (tools) in the lean
  manufacturing system and these subsystems are
  used to remove waste in organizations. The
  objectives of lean manufacturing are as given
  below
• Specification of the value for the customer
• Identification of all actions required to bring
  the product from being a concept to being a
  launch, from order to delivery, from raw material
  to the customers hands
• Removing any action that does not add value and
  align every action to add value as required by
  the customer
• Analyzing the results and start the evaluation
  process again.

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• Today there is a new evolution in manufacturing
  and it is directed by two factors (a) The
  sustained growth of the economy and (b) The old
  management styles are lacking to work with
  employees without multi-task training. Many
  organizations are adapting to lean manufacturing
  processes setting solid goals as given below
• Manufacturing of the quality product
• Cost reduction projects
• Total employee involvement
• Cultural approaches

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The concept of lean manufacturing is regarded as
a significant departure from the automated
factory so popular in recent years. Rather than
batch manufactured for stock, the products are
manufactured one at a time in response to the
requirements of customers. The goal is to produce
the required quantity only and no more. In
todays environment of manufacturing, assembly
work is routinely characterized by constantly
diminishing batch sizes and short production
cycles. While the variety of models and product
types increases. An approach of lean
manufacturing techniques depends much on
flexibility and workplace organization, these
techniques are also worthy of investigation as
they remove large capital outlays for dedicated
machinery until automation becomes absolutely
necessary.
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