Lean Manufacturing

Singh, Harwinder&Singh,Amandeep,(2013),”Application of lean manufacturing using value stream mapping in an auto-parts manufacturing unit”, Journal of advances in Management Research, Vol.10 iss 1 pp. 72-84

Lean accountings primary use is in the manufacturing industry. A lean manufacturing company in which lean accounting is used looks to attack wastes in all forms. This in turn reduces the cost of goods sold. Lean accounting instead uses value stream costing. “Lean accounting experts believe that accounting itself can be lean, which can contribute to profit rather than just calculating it. Cost do not exist to be calculated. Costs exist to be reduced” (Taiichi Ohno).

Lean assembling bases on limiting waste and diminishing expenses through robotization and consistent upgrades in operational productivity. Lean assembling depends on coordinated mechanical frameworks, littler workforces of very prepared representatives and a radical move in organization culture. Each of these components can show unmistakable difficulties that must be overcome to accomplish a really effective lean assembling framework. Understanding these key issues is an essential building obstruct for building up your own particular lean execution arrange.

Lean Manufacturing Systems were first introduced in Japan by the Toyota Motor Corporation. The Lean movement is a type of a system that relies on simple visual cues in order to manage production stages that are based on customer demand. The system is a is also a kind of manufacturing that put great emphasis on the minimization of resources, time included, that is utilized in various activities of manufacturing and provides techniques for uninterrupted quality improvement. Although this system has gained enormous momentum and respect over the last decades, some companies have found it difficult to use Lean Manufacturing Systems, and, as a result, the companies have ended up failing. The concept of Lean Systems is best understood when companies familiarize themselves with certain key insights that are utilized during the course of systems architecting. The article provides a synopsis of the lean and is divided into four parts that will be mainly used for the purpose of this review.

In the beginning of the book, the authors generally introduce three kinds of the worldwide industry in its production system’s development from the very first one to the newest approach, which are craft production, mass production, and lean production respectively.

The automotive industry continues to grow every day. Companies are always coming out with new technology for cars to better their product. In order for these companies to keep a competitive advantage they most implement different types of manufacturing processes. One of these manufacturing processes is lean manufacturing. Sundar, Balaji and Satheesh have done research on lean manufacturing, and they define it as the elimination of waste by determining value added activities and non-value added activities. Non-value added activities consist of transportation, inventory, motion waiting, overproduction, over processing, and defects (2014). Elmoselhy has found multiple tools to be used to implement lean manufacturing. Some of these tools are: 5S, Value Stream Mapping, Single Minute Exchange Die, Kaizen, and Autonomation. This list does not include all of the possible ways to implement lean manufacturing, but gives a brief introduction to a couple. The 5S stands for Sorting, Setting, Shining, Standardizing, and Sustaining (2013). This paper will discuss one of the five S’s, which will be standardizing. Also, this paper will also go into detail about how an automotive manufacturing company uses Single Minute Exchange Die, and some other aspects of lean manufacturing such as visual control and environmental management. Because lean manufacturing can be implemented in many different ways this paper

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.

Lean manufacturing is not just a production method. It is a way of life. One could say that it is simply a way of providing customers what they want, at a price they can afford, when they want it (Leaning Forward). However, it is much more than just satisfying the customer’s needs.

Most people wouldn’t know what Lean Manufacturing was if they hadn’t either learned about it or use it at work. Lean manufacturing is a way to eliminate waste and maximize customer value. Delivering the right product, in the right quantity, with the right quantity, at the exact time the customer needs it and at the lowest cost possible is the main goal of lean manufacturing. With lean manufacturing you can have benefits such as reduced lead times, improved quality, improved on-time deliveries, less inventory, less space, less human effort, lower costs, and increased profitability.

Lean manufacturing is a method of carefully reducing non-value-adding work during production. Value is defined from customer’s perspective as any action or process that the customer will be willing to pay for. Lean manufacturing has been traced to automobile industry – Ford motors in the United States and Toyota motors in Japan(Singh et al., 2010a; Singh et al., 2010b). These companies simplified the processes of making their products by eliminating non-adding-value works. This also led to standardization.

Again, LT help firm to redesign the patients’ pathway. The significant numbers of waste were eliminated and achieved more efficient process. The patients’ pathways were reduced significantly. From the fact, originally, there were 19 steps in serving patients, but with lean they were reduced to 11. This leads to the deduction in lead time in just 80 minutes [16].

In this part, the authors write about the steps of developing lean production by pointing out the assembly plants, the differences between “lean” and Ford’s point of view, production procedures, the supply chain, the scheme of selling automobiles, and what “lean” needs to be perfect.

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.

Physical transformation tasks: ranging from raw materials to producing finished products that get delivered into the hands of the customer.

The below table explains the published papers that have been involved in the lean manufacturing in Automotive Industries. These papers are basically divided into three themes which are later explained below in particular. Themes that are related to each other are marked with a YES in RED color. There are EIGHT papers and are divided accordingly.