Managing Supply Chain Complexity in a Tea Manufacturing Company

Lean manufacturing is the production of goods using less of everything than in mass production: less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment tools and less engineering time to develop a new product. A company becomes lean by continuously increasing its capacity to produce high-quality goods while simultaneously decreasing

“Lean is a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste (non-value-added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the **product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.” Lockwood [24].

This lean production technique involves using a range of “practices designed to reduce waste and improve productivity and quality” (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006). The JIT principles use tools, and techniques that allow Riordan Manufacturing “to produce and deliver products in small quantities, with short lead times, to meet specific customer need” (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006).

Lean manufacturing is the production of goods using less of everything than in mass production: less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment tools and less engineering time to develop a new product. A company becomes lean by continuously increasing its capacity to produce high-quality goods while

Lean production is an incorporated group of activities set up to attain high volume production by using low inventories of raw materials, processing goods, and finished goods (Chase, Jacobs, & Aquilano, 2006). Using a lean production process, the China plant will be able to produce goods at a lower cost. Riordan China plant will need to eliminate any waste in the production process to achieve the highest level of efficiency.

Lean manufacturing is one of the core causes of Toyota's competitive advantage. Other business exercises involve the "Jidoka" system; if there are any errors or other operational difficulties, the production process would be closed.

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 concept of Lean Manufacturing was not quickly adopted by the United States manufacturing companies because of the cost incurred by changing the old manufacturing processes; the perceived need did not outweigh the benefits. In the 1970’s and the1980’s manufacturing companies in the United States took a closer look when Japanese and Chinese companies were selling similar products as the United States like cars, trucks, electronics, and toy, but at lower cost to the U.S. consumers. Companies within the United States urgently sought out experts from Japan to understand this new method due to declining revenues and the realization they were being forced out of market share. They learned that the concept of Lean Manufacturing was to change the goals by exposing waste in all areas within the manufacturing process with an increased focus to satisfy

The trend of implementing lean technology has grown into a broader spectrum. The Toyota production the TPS were applied where only manufacturing efficiency was the aim. Later in 1970 and 1980’s supply complexity, market and distribution, service was concentrated when the company became more globalized, and the aim was to improve the quality, control over effective process.

Lean is defines the manufacturing philosophy that reduces the time between the shipping and customer demand, which based on the systematic method by eliminating waste, that means giving the customer what they want when they want it, and don 't waste whatever. Rahmana, Sharif and Esa (2013) suggested lean production is mentioned to improve the company 's performance from the philosophy in reducing waste in order. That means, lean system destination is the decrease cost by removing the non-value activities, which they are applying a category of tools and techniques for checking and eliminating defective in the production process. In the Evenort Company should emulate the five overriding principles of lean thinking in terms of implementing lean that there is guarantee the company has been driving correctly in the lean manufacturing (Cardiff 2015) as can show in table 1.

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).

And so they implemented Lean in 2004, in their repair division which reduced workplace. Lean manufacturing is applied to get rid of all non-value added steps of the procedure so that providing the best merchandise to clients. Lean was first invented by International Motor Vehicle Program but Taiichi Ohno had already implemented Lean in Toyota Production system. Ohno eliminated seven wastes such as overproduction, over processing, delay, inventories, defective parts, transportation and movements. Lean consists of many tools such as just-in-time, Kanban and etc.

The lean approach refers to a management philosophy in which the company is constantly pushing towards the ideal system. This is done by attempting to reduce or eliminate to the deviations from the system and adapt to any remaining deviations in place. In short, implementing lean production aims to reach the optimal level of efficiency.

Lean manufacturing originated long before Toyota and Ford, however the thought that it originated with Toyota is flattering since they are the ones who perfected it. By creating the Toyota Production System (TPS), Toyota found a better way to produce large quantities of product efficiently with eliminating the waste factor and while cutting down cost. Taiichi Ohno a former Toyota vice president promoted the idea of JIT (Just-in-Time) which means “producing the necessary units in the necessary quantities at the necessary time.” (Monden) Which leads to Toyota’s ultimate goal in the TPS is to improve productivity for better return in investment. To have continuous flow in a production system Toyota sought out to achieve the concept of JIT and autonomation . Since the TPS is what creates the parts who monitors the JIT system? The kanban system which is an informational system that controls quantities being produce in each process. As the discussion carries on throughout this paper about Toyota and their use of the kanban system the topic

Lean manufacturing is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, "value" is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for. The goal of Lean is to becomes the creation and maintenance of a production system which runs repetitively, day after day, week after week in a manner identical to the previous time period. Lean is actually the set of "tools" that assist in the identification and steady elimination of waste. As waste is eliminated quality