Operations management assignment on: Lean manufacturing
Executive Summary
Introduction
Lean manufacturing or lean production refers to a practice which takes into consideration the expenditure of the resources in order to take up the goals rather than creating a value for the same. The main target attached with lean manufacturing refers to the elimination of the resources. This takes into consideration the working from the perspective of the consumers. Consumer shall be treated as the king & the one who consumes the product or takes up the service. In this case value provide to the consumer plays one of the crucial roles. This is because; it refers to a process which would help to create value for the consumers who are willing to pay a specified amount for a particular good or a service.
Major purpose of lean manufacturing or production is to preserve value by working less. It refers to a belief with which has been derived from Toyota Production System (TPS). In the year 1990, TPS launched with the concept Lean manufacturing. TPS is majorly known for its focus to reduce the levels of wastage as well as improve the value provide to the customers. TPS try to formulate various strategies which would help them to achieve high levels of consumer satisfaction. The growth in case of Toyota has been seen with respect to lean production which focuses upon providing high values to the customers.
Lean production refers to a variation within the theme of efficiency which would be based upon optimizing the flow. It refers to an instance which would help to increase the efficiency, effectiveness as well as decrease the overall waste within an organization. This method helps to use the various methods as well as accept the pre-existing ideas. Lean manufacturing or production has been defined as a much refined way with which would take into consideration building of the leaders such as Ford, Toyota, etc. This helps to learn from its mistakes & increase the overall effectiveness, efficiency of the same.
The term “Lean” within an organization or a manufacturing unit describes clearly the various beliefs & philosophy which takes into consideration the various tools, techniques, assets, human resource, productivity as well as optimize the time by providing high class products & services to its customers. Accepting “Lean” manufacturing services refers to the commitment over the entire process as well as gathers a tremendous learning which would help to implement all the different types of practices & principles within the organization.
The term lean production or manufacturing mainly refers to the Toyota Production System i.e. TPS as it was established by the same. Within the Toyota Corporation there are four main people to be thanked for developing such type of a system. The four people to thank are Sakichi Toyota (founder of Toyota), Kiichiro Toyoda, Ejji Toyoda (MD) and Taiichi Ohno.
Principles to Lean management:
Lean manufacturing or lean production refers to a practice which takes into consideration the expenditure of the resources in order to take up the goals rather than creating a value for the same. Major purpose of lean manufacturing or production is to preserve value by working less. The term “Lean” within an organization or a manufacturing unit describes clearly the various beliefs & philosophy which takes into consideration the various tools, techniques, assets, human resource, productivity as well as optimize the time by providing high class products & services to its customers.
Lean manufacturing refers to a concept which takes into consideration high levels of production with half amount of effort. An increase in the overall effectiveness & efficiency within the organization is practiced with the help of effective use of the various resources involved, teamwork, formal communication & a continuous improvement in the overall regime of the enterprise.
Some of the principles in Lean manufacturing or production have been discussed in this section of the report. They are as under:
Þ Identification of the customers with a specified value:
The first & the main point in lean production would be to specify as well as identify the total amount of efforts, time which has been invested by the customers. This helps to add value to the end customer as well. By defining the term value as well as specifying the customers would help to either remove the non value activities or eliminate high levels of waste within the enterprise.
Þ Identification of the value stream:
The second principle in Lean production of manufacturing would be set all the activities all over the organization by involving in providing various products & services. This helps to see the various processes involved which would deliver the required levels of value to its customers. Once the first step is accomplished, the next step i.e. delivering of the desired goods & services would be done in the best possible manner.
Þ Elimination of the waste:
The third principle takes into consideration the elimination of wastes. It is seen that, approximately 5% of the wastage within the entire process gives rise to 45% of service environment. Elimination of the waste would provide its customers with one of the best product or service. This means that, proper flow shall be followed & an un interrupted service or a product would be offered to its customers.
Þ Act in response to the customers pull:
The fourth principle in Lean manufacturing or production would refer to better understanding regarding the demand of the service as well as create a process towards which fair response could be achieved. This also takes into consideration the fact that, we produce only such type of products which are demanded by our customers.
Þ Pursue perfection:
The last principle of lean production or manufacturing takes into consideration the creation of pull & start up with the individual process. This would help to gain as well as become significant when all the steps are linked together. This takes into consideration the overall perfection of the various assets as well as adds value to the end customer.
By following the five principles, the concept of Lean manufacturing would be a hit & would be able to achieve the major goal of the organization. It must be taken into consideration that, all the principles shall be motivated to attain the overall goal of the organization. This process would be quite helpful to ensure that all the processes would help to deliver the best quality products to its customers. This would help to maintain high levels of service as well as grow with the changing environment & help to attain sustainable competitive advantage.
Techniques:
Standardization:Some of the techniques which have been used during Lean production or manufacturing have been discussed in this section of the report. Standardization refers to one of the techniques which have helped to build blocks in lean manufacturing or process in TPS. Managers at Toyota has recognized that with lack of work content, timings & outflows the outcomes gathered would be more in variation as compared to those who have high levels of learning regarding a particular content, etc. With the help of lean manufacturing & production process, there would be high levels of improvement as well as better learning within the enterprise. This would help to create a link between the works accomplished & work yet to accomplish. Hence, the routine work would require standardization in the procedures which would help to maintain the quality as well as keep up the effectiveness as well as the levels of efficiency.
At Toyota or any automobile industry, the main focus would be to reduce the cost of production by eliminating the various other cost of production such as the irrelevant cost of stock or inventory, workers, etc. With the help of standard operations, various different goals such as high levels of productivity, maintaining a balance amongst all the processes, reduction in the variability of the operations, maintaining minimum levels of work in process, etc. It has been seen that, people at Toyota are being trained in this sense & they practice the work in the most independent manner. Such type of an approach would be quite helpful to gather information & upgrade the knowledge as well as increase the levels of efficiency. At Toyota, the standard of the automobile shall not be decreased whereas the production workers have been asked to set a target to upgrade the performance thereby leading to a rise in the overall standards.
In order to seek the problems, Toyota uses a visual system which would help to immediately seek the workers as well as the supervisors to correct the problem in the most appropriate manner. This also determines as to how the specifications of the changes could be done so as to improve the overall performance of the same.
Toyota has been successfully seen as one of the most standardized organization taking into consideration the entire development process. In case of Toyota, the various procedures such as blueprint, designing the feedbacks & maintaining the production reports have been quite standardized. Standardization in case of communication has been seen with respect to the development process.
Simple and specified pathways:
“The work must flow to the right machine (or person) in the right form at the right
time at the lowest cost with the highest quality possible.” By setting up a flow
connecting not only final assembly line but also all the processes—production as
well as non-production processes—one reduces production lead time. In Toyota
system, there are no forks and loops to complicate the flow of good, service, or
information in any of Toyota’s supply chains. This principle addresses the third
rule formulated by Spear and Bowen (1999), i.e., how the production line is
connected?
Toyota system works on the premise of totally eliminating the over production
generated by inventory and costs related to workers, space, and facilities needed for
managing inventory. To achieve this, Toyota practises the Kanban system in which a later process goes to an earlier process to withdraw parts needed just in time. It ensures that all pathways are set up so that every product or information flows along a simple and specified path.
Howeve r , the s t ipulat i o n t h a t e v e r y product follows a simple, pre-specified
path doe sn’ t mean that each path i s dedicated to only one particular product.
At Toyota plants, each production line typically accommodates many more types
of products than its counterparts do at o t h e r c o m p a n i e s s p e c i f i c a l l y U S automakers.
By r equi r ing that eve ry pathway be s p e c i f i e d , t h e r u l e e n s u r e s t h a t a n experiment will occur each time the path is used. If for some reasons a workstation or worker is not available and engineer found himself looking for help to divert production to another machine, Toyota will see it as a problem that might require
t h e l i n e t o b e r e d e s i g n e d . T o y o t a engineer’s consistent motto is to simplify and specify the paths to be followed by the product. The driving forces behind
TPS follow the general direction of selforganisation: towards the “simplicity of original structure” (Sahal 1982).
<http://www.ximb.ac.in/ximb_journal/Publications/Article-01.pdf>
Methods & Processes
Positive & negative attributes
Positive Aspects:
Some of the positive aspects attached with lean production or manufacturing have been discussed in this section of the report. This type of manufacturing would help to enhance the productivity as well as the business performance of the organization. Such type of production would also help to improve the cost, quality, staff as well as the time of delivery. Lean manufacturing refers to the different types of techniques, methods which have been used by a particular company. The sole reason of implementing such type of process within an enterprise would to decrease unproductiveness thereby leading to decrease in the actions as well as behavior amongst the operating environment.
Lean manufacturing plays one of the most important roles in the overall establishment of the organization. This manufacturing process has helped to expose large amounts of waste material which would provide high levels of enrichment, elimination as well as identify various actions in management, style, supply chain, etc. With large number of competitors, the business men would achieve various methods in order to enhance as well as increase the levels of sales & production. Lean manufacturing has been used in the organizations not to decrease the cost of production of the organization but, to restore & increase the extensive competitiveness within the enterprise. It majorly aims at restoring the levels of production, motion, inventories; eliminate the defects in the product offerings, etc.
One of the main benefits of lean production is to reduce the production time. When the organizations would decrease their manufacturing time, the operational cost would be reduced automatically. The use of energy along with labor wages would also turn down. Lean manufacturing would also help in the substantial growth along with rise in the earnings earned by the company. Apart from reducing the levels of cost, the productivity of the organization would also increase. The primary concern of lean manufacturing or production is that, there would be high levels of relationship with profit.
With the reduction in the unproductive cost & increase in the levels of production the demands of the client would be taken up in a much elaborative form. It majorly takes into consideration, the satisfaction level attached with the clients. Lean manufacturing or production would help to operate as well as act more functional which would enhance the product & services of the organization.
It is also stated that, the main success for a company is to have an accurate management. With the help of lean manufacturing or production high levels of training would be done. It is noticed that, it is quite easy for the small companies to apply & implement lean manufacturing within their organization. Whereas, if the enterprise is fairly large then various consideration shall be kept in mind while accomplishing the lean manufacturing process within the enterprise. This would help the enterprise to expand its operations & achieve high levels of success in the years to come.
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