Key Benefits of Implementing Lean Manufacturing in your company

Lean manufacturing is used for addressing the worst thing that can happen to any enterprise that is waste. In other words, lean is used to define organizations, business processes and functions like supply chain, manufacturing, and distribution which have a minimum amount of waste and maximum responsiveness. Lean organizations and business show minimal waste in the following areas that include:-

• Transportation and movement
• Inventory
• Motion
• Waiting
• Overproduction
• Over-Processing of components
• Defects in products, services, and business processes
• Human resource

Lean Manufacturing or lean production is a method of reducing waste within manufacturing production without losing productivity. Initially, the lean was developed by Toyota to enhance its manufacturing operations by eliminating waste and inefficiency. After the success of this development, it is being used in manufacturing around the world.

The introduction of manufacturing offers wide improvements in cycle time, productivity, scrap, material costs and all that leads to making low cost and competitive position of the organization.

Advantage of Lean Manufacturing 

The benefits of lean manufacturing are different from one company to another. The right level of commitment and planning will work well and provide the benefits of lean production in a short period of time. Let’s have a look on some key benefits of Lean manufacturing for your organization:-

• Improved quality- when any quality issues arise, it is important to implement the right problem-solving technique to eliminate the root cause of the problem. Mistake proofing is used to strengthen the process and prevent a recurrence. This will help in improving product quality and will provide benefit from lean manufacturing techniques.

• Better product quality: - It works well in improving efficiency by free up employees and resources for quality control which has been previously wasted.

• Improved lead times: - The streamlined manufacturing process can perform better and respond to fluctuation in demand and other market variables. It helps in fewer delays and better lead times.

• Sustainability:- It benefits in reducing waste and better flexibility that makes your business better fortified to grow well in the future.

• Improve profit:- This is one of the best benefits you can reap with lead manufacturing is improved productivity that reduces waste and produces better quality. This will ultimately bring more benefits to your company.  

Contact Group50 experts for Lean manufacturing consulting

Group50 is a trusted consulting service provider which has expertise in Lean manufacturing and supply chain consulting. They have a set of activities which starts with raw materials and finish with complete product in the customer’s hands. They are supported by the team of subject matter experts who have extensive knowledge and expertise of lean manufacturing and supply chain programs. They know how changing management process is required for the successful implementation of lean programs that are scalable and sustainable.  

Group50 also offers lean six sigma manufacturing and supply chain tools and techniques which have dramatically changed and yet many companies aren’t aware of it. Contact the Group50 Lean Manufacturing Consultant to get professional lean six sigma manufacturing consulting services.

Incorporate lean in your supply chain to support the company’s strategic objectives

Lean is used to describe organizations, business processes and functions such as manufacturing, distribution and supply chains that have a minimal amount of waste and maximum responsiveness. It is all about developing the most value for the customer by minimizing the time, effort and resources. Lean manufacturing is a combination of techniques that are used to eliminate the non-value adding activities and waste from the business processes. Organizations that incorporate lean in their business; extend this concept to their entire supply chain. Lean organizations and businesses exhibit minimal waste in the following 8 areas:

·         Transportation and movement

·         Inventory

·         Motion

·         Waiting

·         Overproduction

·         Over-Processing of components

·         Defects in products, services and business processes

·         Human resource

These eight categories of efforts can be applied anywhere in a business, but manufacturing, distribution and supply chains that focus on these areas of waste have the lowest cost, shortest lead times, highest quality and highly skilled people. It requires utilizing the proper tools and methodologies for identifying the areas of waste inside a company that will generate the maximum ROI by addressing strategic and operating gaps. For organizations that embark on a Lean Manufacturing journey, it is critical to engage a consulting firm who is capable of supporting the journey from start to finish.

Group50, a leading Lean Six Sigma ManufacturingConsulting firm understands the change management process required to successfully implement lean programs that are scalable and sustainable. They have subject matter experts who understand the investigation, design and implementation of lean manufacturing and supply chain programs. They utilize tools such as Value Stream Mapping, Financial Modeling, Spaghetti Diagrams, Work Flow analysis, Supply Chain Modeling, Six Sigma Tools and techniques like the DMAIC process and many others to identify and root out wasted effort.

Advantages of adopting Lean Six Sigma Manufacturing:

Reduced operational costs

Lean Six Sigma makes the organization more efficient and effective in delivering the final product or services to the customers by reducing its exposure to various risks factors. This significantly reduces the process cycle time, turnaround time and lead time thereby reducing the operational costs.

Provides competitive advantage

When your business processes are improved, a significant difference will emerge between you and your competitors. This outcome you can use as your marketing and sales pitch and to outshine your competitors.

Improves efficiency

Lean Six Sigma partially or fully automates the process where manual intervention is more than required. It improves the timelines of the processes which improves the on-time delivery of the products or services.

More satisfied customers

By incorporating Lean Six Sigma, the organizations can have a better service, better quality, and better delivery of the products or services which eventually leads to satisfied customers.

For implementing sustainable lean manufacturing program that will meet the company’s strategic needs, be more cost-effective, have higher quality, better lead times and reduced working capital requirements, hire LeanManufacturing Consultants who can carry out Lean Manufacturing Assessment for your organization.

Hire Group50, a lean consulting firm that will look closely at a company’s supply chain from raw materials to delivered product and identify how it performs against global best practices with a focus on speed, cost, quality, and sustainability. They will look at how well your supply chain is positioned to support the company’s strategic objectives.     

Lean Manufacturing: Transforming Businesses Across The World

Companies of different sizes are now implementing lean manufacturing, for improving business processes and lowering the costs. A large number of product manufacturers have cut down their costs of production by integrating lean manufacturing principles at their place of work. In order to make most of its available resources, every leading production house carries out various lean manufacturing assessments.

What is the lean concept?

Lean manufacturing principles were introduced by Toyota-the Japanese automaker, in the middle of the 20^th century. Three broad categories-Muri, Mura and Muda, were introduced by the automaker, in order to eliminate various wastes in their production unit. The lean manufacturing principles were precisely built from these broad concepts introduced by the Toyota.

Mura concept

The concept of Mura comprises of different steps that have to be taken proactively or in response to a complete manufacturing processes, for the purpose of eliminating unforeseen wastes in the production houses.

Muda

This concept primarily refers to the seven waste forms (seven waste forms are discussed later in this article).

Muri

This concept is inclusive of all modifications in the manufacturing processes for getting rid of the identified wastes.

Benefits of lean manufacturing assessment

Some of the benefits of the lean manufacturing assessment in different production houses are discussed in this post. By implementing the lean manufacturing principles, the manufacturers will be able to cut downs different waste types easily and quickly. Flexibility and waste elimination are other benefits associated with lean manufacturing principles in workplace.

Lean manufacturing principles implemented in production houses have helped the manufacturers to achieve greater productivity and reduced operations cost. These principles have helped the production houses to ensure enhanced quality of their products.

Seven types of wastes

Analyzing the working of lean principles by qualified lean manufacturing consultants starts by understanding and knowing the seven waste forms. These seven waste forms are generated during product manufacturing.

1. Waiting

A lot of time can be wasted due to delay in the manufacturing processes. This delay (waiting) can effectively increase the worker’s downtime of product manufacturing processes.

2. Overproduction

Overproduction is of two types. In first case, there is a product that is manufactured before its purchasing need arises. In this, different resources must be earmarked to store the products or merchandises. In second case, a product is sold at very low rate.

3. Processing

If the product manufacturers are confused about the precise needs of customers or about the products’ working, then this confusion can result in the generation of waste.

4. Motion

Motion is a term used for all the body movements that are made by a worker during the manufacturing processes. Sometime motion can cause stress. It may also lead to injuries as well.

5. Inventory

If you have an excess of inventory then you are required to spend additional money to store it.

6. Correction

It refers to the correction made in a work that has already been done. You have to suffer heavy cost loss because you will have to check the production processes from the beginning.

7. Conveyance

It is waste caused due to unnecessarily movement of one part from one place to another, during manufacturing processes. Part can be damaged during the movement and manufacturers will suffer loss due to it. Also, it can delay the entire manufacturing processes too, which can cause increased operational cost.

Service-oriented enterprises use leansix sigma manufacturing consulting firms to generate value from their internal processes. Regardless of its nature to deploy lean principles at its workshop, the lean manufacturing consultancies empower a company. Production units and service companies approach leading lean manufacturing consultants for effective implementation of lean manufacturing processes.

Defining Lean Manufacturing and Its 6 Lean Concepts and Tools

In order to understand what exactly lean manufacturing is, you should understand its purpose first, then only you will be able to grasp its motive. Lean, also known as 'the Toyota Production System serves following purposes:

• Provide customer satisfaction
• Understand the value stream
• Continuously improve

The lean manufacturing aims at fulfilling these two motives while keeping customer satisfaction at its best standards. Everything that a business should ensure is value to the customer; anything else is not at all valuable.

In other words, lean manufacturing principle emphasizes on satisfying customers consistently by providing them 'what exactly they want', and 'when they want' while eliminating waste through Kaizen - a Japanese word that means, 'change for the better' or 'good change'.

It also encourages providing results through the minimum amount of resources by involving all of the employees in a continual process of improvement.

Some of the motives of lean products can be summarized as:

• Eliminate waste
• Minimize inventory
• Empower workers
• Design for rapid changeover
• Partner with suppliers
• Create a culture of continuous improvement
• Maximize flow
• Pull production from customer demand
• Meet customer requirements
• Do it right the first time

To know how lean manufacturing can help you maximize the productivity, approach a lean manufacturing consulting firm.

Lean Concepts and Tools

There are many tools and concepts that lean manufacturing concepts comprise of. Each of the concepts has its own set of benefits, and is employed depending upon the requirements of a manufacturing unit.

Here are six of the most critical ones:

Cellular Manufacturing

This approach emphasizes on arranging all equipment and workstations according to the different processes, located in close proximity to production of a group of similar products. It aims at reducing cycle time and inventories to meet marketing response times.

Takt Time

This is known as the 'heartbeat' of the customer. It refers to the average at which a company should manufacture the product or carry out transaction based on the customer's requirements and working time provided.

Takt = T/D

Where T refers to the Time available for product/service.

D is a demand for the quantity. And T gives information on production pace or units.

Standardized Work

It refers to a process of documented description of methods, materials, tools, and processing times required to meet takt time for any job provided. This approach aids in standardizing the tasks throughout the value stream.

One Piece Flow or Continuous Flow

This approach aims at minimizing the batch size so as to eliminate system constraints. Under this principle, a product or information is produced by moving at a steady pace from one value-added processing step to the next while ensuring no delays.

Pull Systems and Kanban

This approach enables a customer process to signal a supplying process to manufacture a product when it is needed. Kanban is basically the signals used within a pull system through scheduling combined with traveling instruction provided by visual devices such as containers and cards.

Quick Changeover/ SMED

Developed by Shigeo Shingo, it is a 3-stage methodology aimed at reducing the time taken while switching a machine by externalizing and streamlining steps. Shorter changeover times are used to reduce batch sizes and maximize just-in-time.

Quick Changeover reduces the setup time, thereby improving flexibility and responsiveness to customer changes.

Approach a lean manufacturing consulting company to know which tool would be suitable for your manufacturing unit.

Contact us if you require lean manufacturing consulting service provider company to know which tool would be suitable for your manufacturing unit.for more information contact: Group50® product manufacturing consulting firm Los Angeles, CA (909) 949-9083 info@group50.com