Lean Management

Lean is an Initiative focused on eliminating all waste.
Waste here is defined as anything that does not add value for the customer.

Lean Management identifies bottle necks in your production, unnecessary processes, movement or hidden inventory.

Lean Management or Lean Production is very closely linked with the automobile industry and Toyota.
It is also known as the Toyota Production System (TPS) or just-in-time production.

At the end of World War II Toyota needed to improve brand image and market share. Toyota's production engineer Taichi Ohno, inspired by Henry Ford’s guiding principles of the elimination of waste (Japanese: muda), identified seven types of wastes:

The original 7W are:

  • Transportation (moving products)
  • Inventory
  • Movement (people or equipment moving)
  • Waiting
  • Overproduction
  • Inappropriate Processing or Over Processing
  • Defects (or effort involved in inspection and rework)

    • Later an eighth waste was defined; it was described as manufacturing goods or services that do not meet customer demand or specifications. Others have added the "waste of unused human talent" to the original seven wastes.

    Many industries have adopted the principles of lean production.
    The ten rules of lean production can be summarized as:

  • Eliminate waste
  • Minimize inventory
  • Maximize flow
  • Pull production from customer demand
  • Meet customer requirements
  • Do it right the first time
  • Empower workers
  • Design for rapid changeover
  • Partner with suppliers
  • Create a culture of continuous improvement (Kaizen)

    • Lean does not only focus on production but also every area of production including customer relations, product design, supplier networks and factory management.

    The principles of Lean Enterprise are:

  • Zero waiting time
  • Zero Inventory
  • Scheduling (pull instead of push system)
  • Batch to Flow (cut batch sizes)
  • Line Balancing
  • Cut actual process times.

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