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An essay discussing the various lean manufacturing principles
Elements of lean production
An essay discussing the various lean manufacturing principles
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LEAN PRODUCTION – THE TOYOTA WAY
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.
KAIZEN – CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT
Kaizen is the most important concept in Japanese management. It means continuous improvement in every aspect of life, including social life, working life and home life. A wide range of production techniques and working practices must be carried out for it to be effective. This approach argues that a day should not pass without some kind of improvement being made, no matter how small, and achieving the lean goal eliminating all waste that adds cost without adding value.
Kaizen teaches individual skills for working effectively in small groups, solving problems, documenting and improving processed, collecting and analyzing data, and self-managing within a peer group. It pushes the decision making down to the workers and requires open discussion and a group consensus before implementing any decisions.
Kaizen is a total philosophy that strives for perfection and sustains Toyota Production System on a daily basis.
Elimination of waste in business practices is an important part of Kaizen. Waste is any activity which raises costs without adding value to a product. Waste could be time wasted while staff waits before starting their tasks; time wasted when workers move unnecessarily in the workplace; the irregular use of a machine.
Firms that adopt Kaizen approach train and reward workers to continually search for waste and to suggest how it might be eliminated – the group consensus.
A great amount of attention is paid towards customers in Kaizen. The customer’s needs and requirements are vital.
By implementing Kaizen many firms were not made redundant by the decline of economies which may be due to institutional factors. It improves motivation because the importance of everyone buying into the concept and the vision. It is a whole business philosophy.
KANBAN – SIGNBOARD
Kanban is the Japanese word for the everyday term “signboard.” Kanban is a signalling system to trigger action. It was out of a need to maintain the level of improvements that the Kanban system was devised by Toyota.
As you can see from the points above it is vital to give good customer
Everyone in the organization should be involved in the training process at the end of the case it says a management process that involves all the employees explain this. Kaizen means a “good change“, standardizing the operations, evaluating it and innovating a better option or solution and continue the process. The training process would be different for different groups depending on their roles and responsibilities. When it comes to the training design we have to consider the different levels of operations and their roles and responsibilities. We have to differentiate the trainees depending on their experience, abilities and trainee population. The first line managers and all the employees in the same department should go through
The company’s approach to motivate employees has been working in a positive way. The employees are satisfied with the family style community, and the productivity has increased as well. The company’s style of treating employees as important partners has been successful in other manufacturing companies too. For example, when Honda opened its first factory in the U.S., the CEO and employees shared the same cafeteria, just like Lincoln.
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
Research conducted by Lillianna Guerrero et al. at the Built Department at Eindhoven University of Technology in Den Dolech showing the challenges of waste management challenges for cities in developing countries that waste management comes at a high cost that most countries don’t have the money to set aside for in the annual budget (1). They found that even when the money is set aside, failure to follow guidelines hurts the budget even more. This is important because they must figure out how to make sure guidelines are followed so they can make planned budget costs. Budgeting for a smaller country with no money can be tough especially when there is another factor in their country that needs as much resources as it can get, such as food and water supply for their countries people. Worsening the problem can be avoided if they inform their people on how to properly dispose of their waste and recycle item that could be used in place of another object that will potentially end up as harmful waste. According to Guerrero’s research the outcomes are a comprehensive list of stakeholders that are relevant in the waste management systems and a set of factors that reveal the most important causes for the systems’ failure. For example, failure to educated the public causes incorrect disposal techniques to
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...
The premise of the methodology includes the removal of waste; waste is a non-value activity in which the patient will not want to pay for that particular activity (Anderson-Dean, 2012). Eight types of waste found in most organizations include defects, overproduction, transportation, waiting, inventory, motion, over-processing, and human potential (Kimsey, 2010) (see Appendix B for waste examples in healthcare). In order for change to occur, healthcare staff must be trained in addressing and recognizing each of the mentioned wastes (Kimsey,
...to course correct for any shortcomings we identify. This would be an excellent time to bring the concept of kaizen into play. “The Kaizen Event is an effective tool for moving past “analysis paralysis,” tying improvements to a larger strategy, and involving all the necessary perspectives to create relevant, measurable, and sustainable improvements” (Martin & Osterling, 2007. p. 20). We would attempt to maintain fresh ideas by adding new members and leaders to the change coalition.
Lean startup method helps entrepreneurs to develop businesses and products. This method first developed by Eric Ries in 2008. Eric Ries gained a lot of experience in U.S. startups before developing the Lean Startup method. Ries states that: '' Startups shorten their product development cycle by following businesss hypothesis driven experimentation, repetitive product unleashes and validated learning processes. This method prioritize customers and their needs in order to minimize market risks and some initial costs.
The factors of production are the inputs in any production process. The completed goods are what result from the process, also often called raw and finished goods. The more factors of production are given as input the higher the number of completed goods will be, and of course the opposite is just as true. The typical factors of production are Land, Labor and capital goods. more recently Entrepeneurship has also been added as one of these factors. Understanding these is essential to understanding the two production functions which this WIKI article focuses on. (2)
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.
Traditional methods of waste disposal have proven to be ineffective and have caused harmful effects on the environment. The most popular and inexpensive way to get rid of garbage is burial, but burying your problems does not necessarily mean getting rid of them. Landfill sites pose as severe ecological threats as these mass garbage dump yards overflow with trash and frequently contaminate our air, soil and water with hazardous wastes. About 400 million tons of hazardous wastes are generated each year1. A large-scale release of these materials can cause thousands of deaths and may poison the environment for many years. For example many industrial companies around the world cannot afford to enforce the strict pollution regulations set by many developed countries. This usually forces these types of companies to move to developing countries where pollution regulations are very lenient. These developing countries knowingly accept environmentally hazardous companies usually because they are in desperate need of employment. The harmful effects of these companies were clearly illustrated in the 1960s and 1970s when residents living near Minamata Bay, Japan, developed nervous disorders, tremors, and paralysis in a mysterious epidemic. The root was later found to be a local industry that had released mercury, a highly toxic element, into Minamata Bay. The disaster had claimed the lives of 400 people1. Since 1970 you can bet that a lot more than 400 people have died as a result of waste disposal. If the type of waste disposal were cheaper and effective we wouldn’t have to deal with waste problems, which still plague mankind today.
Efficient waste managing approaches help with reducing and avoiding unpleasant impact on the environment and human health, while allowing financial development and progress in the quality of people’s life. People do not even imagine what is the size and capacity of their activities and the impact they produce on the environment. Garbage is an important ecological problem. It is seems amazing that approximately all of the citizens of the world identify rubbish as a major environmental problem and yet these people still litter. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2008), an American produces 250 million tons of garbage per year (para.2). There are different circumstances that are based on the society, environmental conditions, occupation and size of each of the different family. As Richmond (2010) stated, if no administration organizations has the responsibility or resources to concentrate their efforts on the waste disposal, then the responsibility to do that is on ...
Employees have to work in a culture where they are presented with challenges and develop solutions by questioning their fellow work team rather than just following suit and agreeing or settling. “Toyota views employees, not just as pairs of hands but as knowledge workers who accumulate chi- the wisdom of experience- on the company front lines” (Takeuchi, 2008, p.98). This establishes input from everyone in the company even the frontline workers. “A “community of fate” ideology is developed, which means that employees feel that they and the organization share the same fate that they will succeed or fail together.” (Besser, 1995, p.383). This helps the personal goals align with organizational
Wastes are the products of our consumptions in our daily life routines such as lunch, work, school and other things we do. Little things such as throwing out a piece of paper, we are producing waste by the seconds. After we consume a product we usually throw out what’s left that can’t be consumed any further. Results in producing waste, substance that are born after it’s been use or consume by us. At the end of each day we throw out a bag full of garbage, all of the materials in that bag (paper towels, cans, leftover foods and many other material’s) all of these are waste. Hospitals produce medical waste such as use needles for treating patients. Corporations produce papers, plastics, tires, steels, cans and many other type of solid waste which contribute to the pollutions that cause health risk and other environmental issues.