GETTING LEAN:
AN INTRODUCTION TO LEAN THINKING IN MANUFACTURING
By Chris
Panter[1]
and Sid Sridhara[2]
Department of
Engineering Technology and Industrial Studies
Lean thinking can be defined in its simplest form as driving out waste to pursue perfection. To approach perfection, one must identify what is considered waste and then systematically attack and reduce waste and ultimately eliminate the root causes. Waste can be defined as anything other than the minimum amount of resources which are absolutely essential to meet the necessary goal. In this situation, resources are considered to be equipment, materials, parts, unnecessary labor, etc… Some of the root causes of waste include plant layout, lack of training, poor supervisory skills, poor work methods, poor quality from suppliers, and excess inventory. While driving out the root causes of waste, value is added to the product. The customer can only define value. If a product is functional and meets the needs of the customer in areas of price, time and quality, it can be considered as having value. If extra steps are added to the manufacturing of a product that doesn’t add value, it is considered waste.
The first step in evaluating
a process is to breakdown the system into separate steps. Each one of the steps is either a value
added step or a non-value added step. A value added step is an activity that
transforms or shapes raw material or information to meet customer demand. A non-value added step is activities that
take time, resources or space but do not add value to the product.
The process as a whole
sounds fairly simple, but when applied to a large manufacturing facility, the
situation can become very overwhelming.
Lean thinking is not a Band-Aid or a quick fix. It usually takes anywhere from 2 to 6 years
to fully implement the system.