What Is Lean Manufacturing

Simple Guide To Implementing Lean Manufacturing

Just like any other business you would have come across the term 'Lean Manufacturing'. Are you intimidated by the business jargon of the MBA types? Do you want a simple guide to what is lean manufacturing and how do you go about implementing lean manufacturing, you have come to the right place.

To begin with, Lean manufacturing is the process of optimization of any business process to such an extent that the wastage of resources gets all but eliminated. This is all about implementation. If you can implement it properly, you can make the most out of it.

The first step in the implementing lean manufacturing is to form a team. This team should comprise of both experts of lean manufacturing who have proper lean manufacturing certification and your company's personnel. Then you have to define the hierarchy and channels of communication for every member of the team. The next step is to explain to the team what they are supposed to do both as a team and and in their individual capacity. This should be followed by lean manufacturing training.

Parallel to the training in lean manufacturing principles, you should perform a facility analysis. The main task here is define what is the gap between your current manufacturing process, its input and output and what should be the lean manufacturing process, the input involved and the output of the lean process. Once this is done you should start with the Total Productive Maintenance. TPM is to be carried on in the implementation and execution of the new process.

The next step is value stream mapping. In simple terms this is the process of step where the arrangements to determine the waste in entire process are made. This is followed by actual waste identification process. Once the waste is identified you should start mapping the entire business process. This is to be followed by the determination of the need of production as laid on every process and the equipment involved.

Determination of wastage is not enough here so you should also determine the losses an every process and piece of equipment. It has to be take to the lowest possible level. You can also perform certain line balancing tasks if the process is having unwanted redundancies or the like. This should be immediately followed by steps to optimize the production cycle time, quantity produced and also decrease overall costs.

Then you should perform one piece flow or continuous flow analysis as required. Immediate analysis of quality at the source application is required to ensure that it does not come down. You should perform further optimization by layout and flow improvements. Try to implement the ideas of error proofing at the same time. After this you have to standardize the new operations.

In order to ensure that your steps for implementing lean manufacturing are not wasted you have to keep on making continuous improvements in your business processes.

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