Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy that is responsible for changing businesses all over the world. Unique lean manufacturing techniques are used to reduce waste and create outstanding results, which eventually translate into bottom line profits. Many organizations have been able to save thousands of dollars by implementing these lean manufacturing techniques.

Importance of Lean Manufacturing

If you are in the manufacturing business, you must be aware of problems faced in the manufacturing of large lot sizes. The setup times are long and there are quality and maintenance issues. These results in a lumpy production flow and the schedules don’t match the assembly or customer needs. Lean manufacturing techniques help identify these gaps and remove waste to make the manufacturing process smart and optimal.

Advantages of Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing tools help in identification as well as elimination of waste and quality improvement, along with reduction of production time and costs. The tools include continuous process improvement methods such as kaizen and mistake proofing. These tools:

Roadmap for Implementing Lean Manufacturing

The process starts with identifying a product family or an area that is near final assembly. The next step of the process is determination of the daily demand rate for each item. In the third step comes the identification of processes for common items that are included in the lean cell or line. The next step is to calculate the takt time for each process and defining the standard work content. After doing this, the amount of resources for each process is calculated. This is followed by determining the cell or flow line of the general layout. Finally, you have to balance the workflow and calculate the number of kanban containers.

The computer based training course offered by Quality Improvement International (Qi2) on Lean Techniques has three levels of implementation. The first level or Level 1 is the management level strategy and culture used for implementing Lean. Level 2 is the implementation roadmap that is used for rolling out Lean in the facility. Level 3 tells about the process of implementation of Lean at the project level.

Qi2 has extensive experience in on-site training and in providing start up assistance or consulting in quality improvement. Visit www.sixsigma-qi2.com for more information on the trainings and courses offered by Qi2.