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Lean Manufacturing where to begin

Almost everyone in manufacturing has heard about lean manufacturing. Most large corporations are in various stages of implementation. Many companies are currently applying the principles and building a lean foundation. Others are sustaining the implementation and continuously improving on the foundation. There are also many corporations wondering what went wrong or why they haven't obtained the results they hoped for.

The primary key for success with lean is to understand that it is a journey. There is no "silver bullet" in any manufacturing or service industry. If there were, it would be sold and every company would have it.

Lean begins with the top management of the enterprise. Top management must have the vision to understand both the requirements and expected results, and commit the resources to achieving them. If the expected requirements and resources do not match the results, any system such as lean manufacturing will fail.

The requirements depend on the business. If the business has 5000 employees spread across 15 facilities in 20 different states, the requirements will be large. A small facility with 100 employees will require less.

Management needs to understand that lean manufacturing is a journey. It is a system of applied principles that leads the enterprise to a state of "lean". If management is expecting to achieve "headcount reduction", they are choosing the wrong system. Any headcount reduction should take place prior to implementing lean manufacturing.

Lean systems involve everyone in the enterprise to work diligently to remove all muda (waste) in the system. There are eight common types of waste defined in lean manufacturing. These wastes are so pervasive in organizations that everyone must pursue and eliminate them. People simply are not going to work themselves out of a job, and therefore everyone must be supportive of the journey.

Lean also involves continuous improvement through "kaizen". Kaizen in Japanese means "small incremental improvement". Kaizens involve employees from all functions to work together to eliminate waste, improve productivity, and improve the business in all aspects. Again, management must have employees empowered to improve the operation.

One piece flow is another system utilized in lean manufacturing. Therefore SMED (single minute exchange of die) systems to reduce changeover times must be employed.

Other lean concepts utilized in the journey include "pull systems", "cellular manufacturing",

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