Groundwork For Lean Manufacturing.

It seems that every manufacturing company is now trying to adapt all the Lean Philosophy, invented and even mastered by Toyota Firm. Lean manufacturing has furthermore spilled over into low manufacturing industries. Unfortunately, many companies don抰 completely understand the meaning of Lean Making. Lean Manufacturing, simply placed, is 揷ontinuously improving your processes to shed waste? This sounds straightforward, but many companies will do not become truly Lean while they don抰 have an environment to implement and observe after Lean.

Most people believe Lean is just a few tools (One Piece Rate, JIT, Kan-Ban, 5S, Six-Sigma, Kaizen Coaches and teams, Push / Pull Systems, etc. ) that can cut waste. However, Lean isn't only a set of methods, it is a lifestyle. If a company has severe difficulties with employee turnover, employee spirits, product quality, product shipment, equipment uptime, plant cleaning, etc., it will be incredibly difficult to shift the employees to a new approach and conducting business. To paraphrase, if your employees are developing constant fire fighting method, they will not be capable of properly implement Lean.



Fix the most apparent problems first

To plan for Lean, you must 揻ix the most self-evident problems first? Many times employers will know everything that the problems and systems are. They just don抰 have time, resources, or incentive to refurbish them. If you have the car that is constantly breaking down as a result of bad transmission, then remedy it! Repair or replace the transmission. Do not implement a Lean Technique to fix the car. Just remedy it. Lean is not would once fix broken processes. Lean is required to continuously improve working processes lower waste. When all the most self-evident problems are fixed regarding that vehicle, it抯 then time for them to fine tune it in becoming more efficient. It抯 time to observe ways to cut waste products (cost) to ultimately lower your expenses!

A Word about Six-Sigma

Some companies now mandate that Six-Sigma be taken to fix problems. The fact is that, Six-Sigma isn抰 always implemented correctly. Six-Sigma is designed to solve complex problems that have numerous variables that cause variation in the process, which ultimately bring about defects. Six-Sigma uses statistics to be able to systematically identify what several variables are doing in the way and points to capability solutions. It eliminates guessing in order to what抯 causing the variants. Again, fix the obvious problems first. Many problems don抰 end up being analyzed to detect options. In many instances, a solutions are obvious: i actually. e., If the bulb is blown, then, change the lamp.

Value Your People

Society generally is the word for companies as entities. We communicate IBM, GM, and Microsof company as entities; however, they can be really groups of individuals. GM doesn抰 build trucks, the employees of GM build cars.

To develop that culture as successfully mainly because Toyota Corporation has, companies must first realize that they need to develop, nurture and price their employees. In order to develop a culture of people planning to continuously improve, people end up being engaged in their work. They have to feel valued by the company. They have to feel they are noticed and rewarded for contributions. Ultimately, the company may need to value having low employee turnover to make consistency. A company with superior employee turnover cannot maintain a thriving Lean environment.

To foster such type of environment in today抯 world of business isn抰 easy. There can be low loyalty between U. S. companies and their employees for several different reasons. Some companies look at employees just as one expense rather that an asset that is easily cut. If employees on the company do not feel the company values them, they should find other jobs. With today抯 world of business, it抯 difficult to implement long term Lean strategy. Certainly, a company can state to it抯 employees to utilise Lean tools to structure waste, however, to sustain that ideology permanent require an engaged, true, consistent, work force.

Grow and Retain Strong Frontrunners

Good managers are coaches, poor managers are dictators. An effective manager will believe inside team concept where every member of the team is significant and his/her opinions are usually valued. A good manager may value his/her employees and know that for him/her to be happy, the team has to be a success. A poor manger will dictate to his/her workers, which creates havoc! An effective, efficient, business unit with substantial employee morale will falter within weeks if an inadequate manager has taken above. Poor managers fail for the reason that don抰 have strong leadership skills. They lack men and women skills, communication skills, final decision making skills, and delegation skills expected to develop and maintain valuable teams. A strong leader ought to sell the Lean Strategy and are aware that ultimately the employees as being a team are the ones to earn it happen.

Think and act World-class (even if not certainly, there yet! )

To become Lean may be to become World Class. When walking to a facility that has the unclean, unorganized work natural environment, one knows he/she haven抰 walked to a World Class facility. You do not have to look at the actual productivity numbers to determine set up facility is World Training. If a plant is Superb, it looks World Class when you first walk into the doorway.

A Lean facility is thoroughly organized. Every operation is clearly defined with standards. Production is operated via obvious Visual Management. A true Superb facility has the willpower to sustain organization. Outdoor auditors, potential customers and employees can be turned off if the task environment isn抰 clean and additionally organized. Keeping a workshop clean and organized is easy; however, many companies ignore this simple task.

Make Decisions Based upon Logic and Not National healthcare

Most of the effort decisions made senior managing are implemented without questioning regardless if the decisions make impression or not. Too so often, decisions are made through senior management without them fully understanding the task and issues. Lower-level managers ultimately apply ideas and strategies that happen to be not based on intuition but politics. They will implement ideas despite the fact that they themselves do not believe in them. This can create numerous problems helping to make implementing Lean Strategies very difficult.

Decisions should be made during the entire organization through effective talking. Senior management should not only for mandate, but sell their ideas and turn into open to questioning along with suggestions from lower-level supervisors. Senior management should know the issues and process by effectively communicating while using managers at the diverse levels. Major decisions anytime you can should be made as a team vs. an particular person.