What is Lean Manufacturing?
Maximising the resource utilisation through minimisation of waste is how lean manufacturing could be briefly defined. Lean manufacturing also has become an important method to tackle the fluctuating and competitive business environment.
The manufacturing world is more dynamic than ever with Industry 5.0 just around the corner. Companies, no matter manufacturing or service-oriented, to survive would have to depend on its ability and system to continuously respond to market changes for enhancing or sustaining the product value. Therefore, implementing a lean manufacturing system is the most competent way out here.
Before we proceed to the five principles of lean manufacturing, please note this article is a brief introduction to lean manufacturing. It is not an academic paper.
Five Principles of Lean Manufacturing
The five principles of lean manufacturing include perfection, flow, value, pull and value stream. Each one of these has an important role in manufacturing. Let’s learn more about them.
1. Value
The customer’s willingness to pay for goods and services establishes the worth of any given item. After that, the producer or service provider tries to satisfy consumer demand while decreasing costs and increasing revenue.
2. Value stream
This includes looking at the basic supplies used to create a product to find any waste. A product’s complete cycle, starting from collection of basic materials to completing and dispatching the product, all these are covered by the value stream. Every phase of the processing cycle must be assessed for waste, and everything that does not contribute value must be removed from it.
3. Flow
The flow principle requires removing all obstacles from the process of producing or providing a service. This enhances the lead times and ensures smooth process flow.
4. Pull
In a pull system, tasks are only completed in response to customer demand for a particular good or service.
5. Perfection
To identify the best solution for the value stream, lean manufacturing needs continuous process evaluations and enhancements. To ensure the success of the product process, for instance, lead times and product cycles must be measured.
| Did you know?
In the 1950s, Toyota Motor Corporation’s Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo were the main contributors in advancing the concept of lean manufacturing. They developed the Toyota Production System, which later served as the basis for lean manufacturing in the United States. It was in 1990 when lean manufacturing was introduced in the west, with the release of the book The Machine That Changed the World. According to the book, Toyota used a technique known as lean production to bring them to the top levels of the automotive industry. |
Examples of Lean Manufacturing
Any procedure that doesn’t add value for the client is considered as waste in lean manufacturing. For example:
- Transport that is not essential
- Insufficient demand and excessive inventories
- Overproduction of a good or service
- Waiting for inactive machinery or unavailable workers
- Including features that are not essential in a product
- Issues or defects in products that are too costly to fix
Lean Manufacturing Terminology
There are several terminologies used in lean manufacturing that relate to various product cycle stages. Some of the key phrases are included in this list below:
- Current state: The real-time view of the workflow.
- Product family: Categorizing products depending on identical production approaches.
- Future state: An enhanced or new view of the workflow based on the data.
- JiT: Providing what is required on schedule and in the appropriate quantity is known as just-in-time delivery.
- One-piece flow: The procedure of transferring goods, one piece at a time, from one workstation to the next to avoid inventory accumulation between processing stages.
- Takt time: The speed at which a client uses the product. It is computed by taking the entire daily customer demand and dividing it by the total daily use time.
- Monuments: Tools or devices that are too costly or inconvenient to relocate.
- Kanbans: A pull manufacturing system which is usually activated by a visible cue, often a reorder card or container.
- The 5S’s: A strategy for organizing the workstations.
- Kaizen: Constantly refining a good or service in an effort to achieve perfection.
- Work cell: A work cell is a configuration of equipment, workers, and basic supplies in one location to produce a good.
- TPM: The goal of total productive maintenance is to minimize downtime caused by unforeseen emergency repairs by increasing the amount of equipment available.
Enhance Your Lean Strategy with Digital Technology
Tools for lean manufacturing assist companies in issue solving, performance evaluation, and workflow optimisation. Although the principles of measuring and enhancing productivity and efficiency are not new, manufacturers are finding it more feasible and simpler to link and digitize their operations, which in turn contributes to more improvements and strengthening of the lean strategy.
This is due to the development of digital technology. Methods that make use of connected worker technology and artificial intelligence (AI) can help to digitize industrial processes and find possibilities for continuous improvement that will increase worker effectiveness and efficiency. In fact, this can involve no-code tools and digital work instructions to automate and simplify task management and workflow in industrial settings.
If you are looking to incorporate lean manufacturing in your industry then you can contact us to book a demo on how Dropslab can digitise your workflows and simplify the task management for the workers to improve production, quality and efficiency.
FAQs
1. What is lean manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing is a methodology that focuses on the maximisation of resource use through the minimisation of waste in production processes. This methodology is meant to help organisations be responsive to market fluctuations while maintaining or improving product worth.
2. What are the five principles of lean manufacturing?
The five principles of lean manufacturing are:
Value: Determined by the customer’s willingness to pay for a product or service.
Value Stream: Identifying and eliminating waste in the production cycle.
Flow: Ensuring smooth production by removing obstacles.
Pull: Producing goods or services only in response to customer demand.
Perfection: Continuously evaluating and improving processes for the best outcomes.
3. Can you provide examples of waste in lean manufacturing?
Examples of waste in lean manufacturing include:
– Unnecessary transport.
– Overproduction of goods or services.
– Excessive inventory or insufficient demand.
– Delays caused by inactive machinery or unavailable workers.
– Including non-essential features in products.
– Product defects that are too costly to fix.
4. What are some key terminologies used in lean manufacturing?
Key terms in lean manufacturing include:
JiT (Just-in-Time): Delivering materials or products exactly when needed.
Kanbans: Visual signals that trigger a pull manufacturing system.
Kaizen: Continuous improvement aimed at achieving perfection.
5S’s: A strategy for organising workstations effectively.
Takt Time: The speed rate of customer consumption of products.
5. What can digital technology do for lean manufacturing?
Digital technology helps improve lean manufacturing as it facilitates workflow digitisation and automation. AI, no-code platform, and more makes tasks easy, increases efficiency, and finds new areas of improvement continuously. All these innovations empower the lean strategy and render the processes more efficient.
If you need further help or would like to implement lean manufacturing in your organisation, have a look at these tools from Dropslab Technologies for digitising workflows and streamlining tasks. Contact us to schedule a demo!
