THE ELEMENTS OF LEAN PRODUCTION
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.
Running the Factory. This chapter is written according to an investigation at IMVP World Assembly Plant. It is true that the car assembly workshops require a significantly large space with massive storage areas and railway systems. Besides, thousands of labors will work in a big and chaotic building with many noisy machines; consequently, this is such a significant problem for all automobile companies. The writers use the case of the IMVP World Assembly Plant to emphasize the three factors that persuaded them that assembly was the most essential part in the automobile manufacturing process. The first thing is that assembly is involved in most of the work in car industry. The next reason is all of the cars and light trucks today are manufactured in the same technique so that the assembly factories in the world almost do the similar work. Lastly, Toyota, in order of spreading the lean production, had built lots of assembly factory in both North America and Europe. Furthermore, a typical example of mass production at General Motor workshop in Massachusetts is used in order to illustrate the need of lean production in the Midwest of America. Subsequently, the
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.
In the book, The Toyota Way, Jeffery Liker provides an in-depth account of, not only the tools and methods of Toyota’s Production System, but also a broader explanation of the principles at work in the Toyota culture. This philosophy of manufacturing can be summarized through two important pillars: “Continuous Improvement” and “Respect for People.” These pillars help define Toyota’s approach to doing business, were the focus is on continuous learning and embracing change. By incorporating this ideology and its 14 principles into its manufacturing operations, Toyota has become the greatest manufacturer in the world. In this essay, I will provide a synopsis of Toyota’s 14 principles and also offer my own account of lean manufacturing at CNH Industrial.
The purpose of this literary review is to achieve insight into lean manufacture and how it can be applied within a manufacturing environment. With global contention, it is important for maker to remain competitive in their respective marketplace and to understand the principles of lean manufacturing and the step to implement them to ensure that they are on the leading edge of manufacturing. This literary review describes the below mention principles.
Lean manufacturing a systematic approach to doing more with less. In other words, Lean, is a method of increasing the amount of a manufacturer’s output, while reducing the amount of resources put in. Lean is of great interest to manufacturers around the world. Companies of all sizes employ lean principles to employ large improvements to quality, marketability and customer service.
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
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).
Although the principles of lean can be dated back to the early 1900’s with Henry Ford’s development of the assembly line production, it was Kiichiro Toyoda, researching Ford’s innovation, adapted the process and further streamlining it in Toyota’s automobile manufacturing company that came up with what is now known today as the Toyota Production System. A disciplined, process-focused
In this paper we will discuss Toyota’s Production System and how it works with the strategy of their business. We will define their mission and visions goals and their core principles as it applies to their company. This paper will also discuss their basic approaches and general practices. It is also important to understand what the Toyota Production System entails and how Lean operations began.
Lean manufacturing has become one of the most acceptable forms of manufacturing technique among the various manufacturers. The aim of the report is to analyze the advantages and limitation of the lean manufacturing process. A detail analysis of the system will be done by referring to a number of scientific journals based on the same topic.
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).
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].
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.
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.
The main aim of lean manufacturing is to limit inventory, excess workers and waste. The basic principles can be broken down into five practises – value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection [1]. It is essential to map the value that the product provides to the customer. Decisions need to be well thought-out, and implementations should be rapid. It is also important to ensure that each step provides value thus maintaining the value stream. Flow recognises the processes that ensure that the movement between the value creating steps is smooth. Lean manufacturing requires the customer to pull the output from the previous step and hence avoid overproduction. Finally, the vendor needs to continually strive to improve their quality and processes. Lean manufacturing emphasises on continuous improvement in quality and work should be stopped as soon as quality starts suffering.
The modern concept of lean management as used today can be traced back to the Toyota Production System (TPS). The manufacturing philosophy was pioneered by Japanese engineers to emphasize the minimization of waste and focus on “doing it right the first time” (Davis and Heineke, 2005). Engineers knew that waste was something that customers were not willing to pay for thus they should try and eliminate it. This led to the discovery that inventory is essentially waste. Keeping parts and products in stock adds no value to a company, and should be eliminated. Although lean production began in Japan, it now has been successfully implemented across the globe (Agus and Hajinoor, 2012).