Discuss How the Concept of Lean Operations Can Be Applied to a Service Operation, Referring to Either a Specific Case, or Cases, to Support Your Argument

Industrial improvement science (IPS) advises where possible to rigorously pursue the customer or the case of this paper – patient, ‘value’ in as much service planning as possible: many of the processes that provide little or no value to the patient are usually the cause of wasted time, resources, capacity and finance and can in places lead to sources of potential harm that take away from the improving health agenda. In order to really understand what provides value, quality and high level care to the patient, we need to consider improvements from the patient’s perspective, as they are the expert by experience.

Lean production is known as lean where the aim is to remove waste, which is known as Muda a Japanese word which means waste, where the first company to use lean was Toyota. The company caught the “world attention in 1980” (Liker, 2004) as cars where lasting longer than American cars and Toyotas finical turnover was increased as well its shares increased by 24% when the market was crashing. Toyota production system (TPS) and lean production are similar as the aim is to remove waste and make the best quality product aswel to make the product the most valuable as this will make the production line will only have adding cost to the product none adding value. There is three types of waste the first waste is Mura a waste caused due to variation between products which can cause delay and further costing. The second waste is Muri which is cause by overworking employers to the maximum to the point where they

The success of the Toyota Production System is the evidence that Lean Systems help manufacturing companies in improving their operations and the process of manufacturing. Lean is an approach to eliminate waste and maximize the value for the customers. Lean has made its place in today’s market. Apart from Toyota, companies like John Deere one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery, Textron- leading systems which offers products and services to support the defense and the aerospace, Intel- the world’s largest chip makers, Nike-one of the leading super-cool clothing company have occupied their place in the success list of lean systems.

The idea behind the lean manufacturing is to work relentlessly on eliminating waste by the end of the manufacturing process. As stated by Cirjaliu and Draghici, (2016), lean manufacturing works as a collection of a number of tools, techniques and tips that proves effective for driving the wastes generated during the manufacturing process. Lean manufacturing as it is also known as Toyota Production System is one of the most basic and systematic form of waste elimination system.

Lean originally originated from Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) (McCarthy, 2015) in the early 1900’s however it wasn’t until the Toyota family introduced the Toyota Production System (TPS) into their company manufacturing operations that it began to gain recognition. In the 1950’s, Toyota first implemented quality measures within the production lines process and hence the initial stages of continuous improvement. Taiichi Ono, who was the executive vice president, developed and implemented the renowned Toyota Production System (TPS) after the Second World War as a means of producing a highly effective and efficient manufacturing line for their products. Ono took great inspiration from Henry Ford’s early lean concepts and applied it to meet the demand of their own Japanese market. This built the seeds of TPS, which today is better known as lean manufacturing (Womack&Jones, 1996).

The concept of "lean production" was first introduced in The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1991) to refer to a new way of looking at the manufacturing enterprise. It was distinguished from mass production by its single-minded focus on eliminating waste in all aspects of the enterprise.

In services, Lean must focus on eliminating waste differently than manufacturing. Minimizing lead times between customer demand and fulfillment can be one of the ways to reduce waste. The services sector is now moving towards enhancing the customer experience. With this goal, there should be proper alignment between efforts to improve operational efficiency and achieving more customer satisfaction. (Ganapathy, 2015, p. 5).

The core idea of lean is to relentlessly work on eliminating waste from the manufacturing process. Waste can be defined as any activity that does not add value from the customer’s perspective. According to research conducted by the Lean Enterprise Research Centre (LERC), fully 60% of production activities in a typical manufacturing operation are waste – they add no value at all for the customer. Every company has an opportunity to improve, using lean manufacturing techniques and other manufacturing best practices. Techniques that enable you to deliver higher quality products at significantly lower costs (Vorne Industries Inc., 2010-2013).

This paper presents a relevant contribution for practitioners and managers to deal with the implementation of lean. It shows that through the effective use of available tools to measure the lean manufacturing implementation of the company. Lean methods are available for them to identify specific problems and opportunities to improve the lean practice implementation.

Lean manufacturing is an exercise that is based on waste minimization. It considers the utilization of resources for any activity other than the creating value for the customer, as waste. Basically, lean is centered on “Delivering value with less work by eliminating waste” (Liker, 1997). Lean manufacturing philosophy involves never ending efforts to reduce or eliminate 'muda' (Waste) in manufacturing processes.

Toyota 's Production System (TPS) is based upon “lean” principles that includes focusing on the customer, constant and recurrent improvement, and superiority through waste reduction, and combined upward and downward developments as part of a lean. “TPS is the foundation for what has become a global movement to “think lean”. Most manufacturing companies in the world have adopted some type of “lean initiative,” and this concept is now spreading to a diverse range of organizations, including the defense department, hospitals, financial institutions, and construction companies” (Liker & Morgan, 2006). Unlike like TPS, Lean is a business improvement idea that focuses on the true needs of the customer to help the business prevent waste from being built into the system. This paper will compare and contrast the concept of Lean and TPS used by Toyota.

When relating lean production to a process, there are three key principles that are considered. First, manufacturing performance adheres to the improving flow of material and information across business functions. Second, lean emphasizes customer pull rather than organization push. Last of all, lean develops the individuals of an organization to practice and pursue a commitment to continuous improvement (Lewis, 2000). Many researchers cite lean as constantly evolving, arguing that any definition of the concept would only be a snapshot of a moving target. Because of this, it is hard to give a consistent definition to the subject of lean. Researchers also argue that lean principles can be applied to any industry, regardless of the concept’s origin to the automobile industry. They encourage organizations to acknowledge the different perspectives that the concept comprises when embracing a lean approach within their processes (Pettersen, 2009).

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is a standard and admirable model of Lean Manufacturing, though it should be kept in mind that this structure is custom-made to the requirements of Toyota, so that it can 't be imitated to other organizations without alteration. Moreover, TPS incorporates not only common Lean-principles such as decreasing waste, encouraging flow and generating market-pull, but comprises also lean management by the use of other progressive approaches such as Total Productive Maintenance.

The term and method of Lean principles are originally obtained from the industry of Japanese manufacturing namely the Toyota Production System. It was first used in "Triumph of the Lean Production System", an article by John Krafcik in his 1988 (Holweg, 2007). The term has been turned into a methodology of Improvement in many industries such as healthcare as it is built on persisted improvement, paying concentrated attention on value, flow and waste reduction. The methodology of Lean Principles assumes that organizations are based on processes, which refer to linked activities that have a specific order and space, with a beginning, an end and clearly defined inputs and outputs (Nicola Burgess and Zoe Radnor, 2013). Focusing on customer needs and reduction of waste (Kristine Desotto,Casey Krawic, Zachary et al, 2011). Lean Principles, Methodology may effectively organize the nurse-patient relationship as it is based on patient needs that are expected to be met by the services provided by the nurse. Throughout this paper, Lean principles are highlighted as one

Lean is a quality management program that was made popular at the Toyota Corporation. Its main philosophy involves eliminating wasteful or unnecessary steps in the process and creating value for customers. Toyota’s past president identified seven types of waste to be eliminated from the supply chain. They are waste from overproduction, wasting time, transportation waste, inventory waste, processing waste, waste of motion and waste from defects. Organizations that successfully implement Lean methodologies can reap dramatic benefits (Jacobs & Chase,