How Lean Operations And Supply Chain Differ From Traditional Approaches

This paper will review a suggested plan for creating the cultural change required to start and sustain lean. It is address the five of the cultural enablers and the core fundamentals of people, specify the cultural processes, techniques, and practices required for a lean organization.

Lean thinking is an organizational change method that is also implemented with the objective of increasing profit. Lean thinking originated in Japan, and is best exemplified by the Toyota Production System. Constraints placed on the Japanese manufacturing industry after the second world war lead Taiichi Ohno of Toyota to pioneer a new type of production system that was so different, and so much better, than mass production, as to warrant a new type manufacturing. Lean production is a method of organizing production using half the effort, space, inventory, and product development time compared with mass production. It also achieves fewer defects, and larger product variety. These improvements should result in increased sales, which is the key to re-deploying freed-up resources. Lean thinking codified and expanded upon the Toyota Production System to include non-manufacturing organizations, as well as product development efforts.

In order to achieve the goals, there are several tools and methods have been introduced in lean production. The tools and methods are including:

This essay is going to analyze a case study based on lean thinking principles and techniques. It is could divide in four significant parts. First, to outline the definitions of Lean manufacturing philosophy and applied the strategies to achieving, next create future state Value Stream Map, Furthermore justification Lean Six Sigma tools and techniques, which would appropriate, and critically discussed the key successful should his idea to the Evenort Company.

A company realizes profits from two activities, increased sales units with reduction of costs. The stakeholders that allow a company to do this are the internal employees to the company, and the businesses the company partners within their product supply chain. Lean development methodologies are common in manufacturing due to the relentless focus on continuous improvement, and efficient manufacturing practices while

The operational systems of organizations can be viewed as open systems, which interact with their respective environments on a continuous basis. In this context, these systems comprise synergetic and interdependent subsystems of input, process and output with the main objective of these systems being to efficiently and effectively deliver goods and/or services to their demanding customers (Yasin and Wafa, 2002). Confronting the challenges of global competition, companies have to reduce costs, improve quality, and meet their customers’ ever-changing needs (Canel et al., 2000). Even though lean techniques were developed for the manufacturing firms and

Most companies leaving on lean manufacturing soon find that their accounting processes and management methods are inconsistent with the lean changes they are making. The reason for this is that traditional accounting and management method were intended to support traditional manufacturing; they are based upon mass production thinking. Lean manufacturing breaks the rules of mass production, and so the traditional accounting and management methods are unsatisfactory and more often than not effectively unfriendly to the lean changes the company

Various written works have explored the Lean advantages and applications. The term Lean was initially instituted by Krafcik (1988). Therefore, Womack, Jones, and Roos (1991) utilized the term Lean implementing to portray the Toyota creation framework

138) The small improvements in different steps of the production process, when summed together, should lead to a higher level of efficiency and improved quality of products. Lean approach has been applied successfully in the private sector, particularly in production, but the approach is less frequently used in the public, and scant research has been done to establish whether it confers the same benefits and what effects it has on the productivity and the quality of the services delivered (Brady & Allen 2006, P 335).

The basic concepts involved in lean and lean manufacturing was originated from The Toyota, one of the Japanese automaker in the global competition since decades. In 1988, Taiichi Ohno brought the lean concept into operation for the first time at Toyota and called it as Toyota Production System (TPS), to overcome economic crisis due to World War II. TPS was mainly developed to flourish with minimum resources. Owing to the immense shortages of material, human and financial resources, TPS had no other option but to choose the waste reduction policy to cut down the costs at the shop floor. Even in the hard economic crisis, Toyota sustained and was successful because of its higher efficiency in operation and improved production system. In the meantime, inadequacy of the resources which was at first an obstacle to the company transformed into an opportunity to establish Toyota as a world class car manufacturer. ‘Lean’ approach was slowly applied in many manufacturing and management floors over the last few decades.

The demand for products “pulls” products through the manufacturing process. The goal is to produce a product only when it is needed and to only produce the quantity that is needed. The last principle of lean manufacturing is pursue perfection. This principle keeps the goal of producing highest quality products for the lowest cost in the least amount of time. Waste is eliminated when detected and defects are prevented. Through experience implementing lean manufacturing, the pursuit of perfection becomes achievable.

Lean is about doing more with less and is often used in connection with lean manufacturing to imply a ‘just-intime’ approach to the business. Many companies that have adopted lean manufacturing as a business practice are anything but agile in their supply chain. It is paradoxical that many Japanese companies have exceptionally long delivery lead-times to their customers and insist that those customers provide them with firm orders often several months ahead of manufacture. Yesterday’s world was one characterised by standard products, mass produced for generally predictable market demand. Today’s world is almost the opposite with customers demanding tailored solutions (high variety) in small quantities (low volume) with a higher degree of uncertainty.

Lean operations and supply chain originated from the Toyota Production System in Japan and have influenced manufacturing over the past two to three decades. Lean is described as the product of applying the Toyota Production System to all areas of an industrial process. Toyota’s strategies are based on Just in Time manufacturing, continuous flow, reducing lead times, eliminating non-value added waste, and excess inventory, a pull system centred on customer demand and continuous improvement (Liker, 2004). These integrated processes became the basis of Lean manufacturing and have recently extended to include all aspects of the supply chain process. Raw materials arrive Just in Time for production based on the demand of the

Lean Manufacturing is an approach taken by manufacturing organization to increase efficiency through optimization and maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Traditionally, Lean principles were applied to manufacturing industries especially automotive companies. However, with the success in automotive industry, it no longer limited to automotive sector and can be applied in other manufacturing sectors as well as services industries (Balle, et al., 2006). The drivers for implementing Lean in both manufacturing and service sectors are customer demands for better quality products and services, managerial demands for cost reduction and sustaining in an increasing market competitiveness.

Production managers are faced with many challenges within their facilities such as managing inventories, controlling waste, and managing an ever changing production schedule. Managing product flows can be difficult when balancing supply chain inventories with demand changes or scheduling problems due to throughput variations. Several methods for managing these challenges have been developed through the years and each have their own advantages and disadvantages for different applications. The methods discussed in this paper will be limited to the Theory of Constraints, Just in Time, and Material Requirements Planning. All three methods are designed to manage different aspects of a manufacturing facility’s product flow but all three were ultimately developed as an optimization strategy for the manufacturing process. The roots of Lean Manufacturing is one of the earliest management strategies to be developed to address the challenges for production control and may well have been the birth of strategic production control as we know it today.