Lean Production Practices For Efficiency Kocakulah

Production practices have had an important role in satisfying the dynamic market. Many approaches have being developed in order to respond effectively to specific business requirements. In fact, some areas of management have focused its study on the overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production in an effort to find the best methodology that ensures the business success and performance. However, complexities arise in this field because many variables such as costs, inventory, scheduling, suppliers, etc have to be considered in any business. Lean approach and the traditional approach are two points of view that aim to address this complexities, and those will be examined in this essay.

ČIARNIENĖ, R. and VIENAŽINDIENĖ, M. (2012). Lean Manufacturing: Theory and Practice. Economics and management, 17, 732-738.

At this point, Toyota was operating in an environment that had limited resources when it comes to land as well as technology, ironstone and financial investments. These specific circumstances made Toyota redefine efficiency in their own way, and come up with new ground principles in order to cope with the scarce resources. The basic idea of Lean is to focus on flow efficiency instead of resource efficiency and to focus on the customer, producing only what the customer wants, in the amounts the customer wants it, and at the time the customer wants it (Larsson, 2008). Lean developed to be a set of principles, practices, tools and techniques focused on reducing waste, coordinating workflows and handling variability (de Koning et al.,

Lean is a philosophy that focuses on maximizing value to a customer and at the same time minimizing waste. This philosophy can be applied across all processes of the business. Lean methodology overcomes various waste associated with the process. There are various lean tools like Value Stream Mapping, JIT, TPM, 5S, Jidoka, Kaizen etc. which helps organization to streamline their process and giving customer products of highest quality thereby earning customer satisfaction.

The core objection behind lean systems is to maximize customer value while minimizing waste. Basically, lean is defined by using fewer resources in order to make a perfect value for customers. How lean systems work, they use a highly skilled workforce and flexible equipment in order to make some advantages. Such as mass production which is the high volume and low unit cost. And craft production which is the variety and flexibility, this will help eliminate waste for the producer and consumer. Luckily, this approach has drawn attention to other services. For example, lean systems aren’t only suitable for manufactures but also health cares, offices and shipping and delivery. The misconception that lean is a tactic or cost reduction program is not necessarily true, but it is a process of thinking and acting for the entire company. In order to accomplish lean system thinking changes must refrain from management optimize separate technologies, assets and vertical departments.

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 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 their book The Story of Lean Production – Toyota’s Secret Weapon in the Global Car Wars That is Revolutionizing World Industry, published in 2007, James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos generally introduce and discuss about three industrial manufacturing methods from the very first approach to the most current one, which are craft production, mass production, and lean production respectively. Basically, their main points are focusing on lean production and its development as well as related issues.

“The Machine that Changed the World” guides the reader through the fascinating story about lean production and Manufacturing system that results in a better and more cost efficient product, higher productivity and greater customer loyalty. It tells about how critical the use of efficient team work, good communication and efficient use of resources are to produce remarkable results with cars 1/3 less defects and half the

In our economy today we face major issues dealing with manufacturing with how do we build or retain the capacity and competitive edge in the global market? Well manufactured is measured in a number of ways, such as statistics and analyses. These metrics range from the amount and type of goods produced, to a detailed breakdown of the people who contribute to this production, to the economic impact of both. But knowing the market is tough using lean manufacturing techniques as a tool any company can maintain control of an operation of any business.

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 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.

Lean production is all about gaining more by doing less, such as less time, limited fund and labor and also within a small space. Thus, five major areas that drive the lean manufacturing process are its quality, cost, kind of delivery, safety and morale. By the means of lean manufacturing, a number of advantages can be achieved. These advantages are:

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.

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).