Instruct: Given a question, retrieve documents that can help answer the question.
Query: What is lean manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply "lean", is a systematic method for waste minimization (known by"Muda") within a manufacturing system without sacrificing productivity, which can cause problems. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden ( the "Muri") and waste created through unevenness in work loads (the "Mura"). Working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product or service, "value" is any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.
The lean startup principles, developed from 2008 from lean manufacturing, also now contribute to our understanding of lean enterprise:Henry Ford developed a process called assembly line production. This is a manufacturing process in which parts are added as the assembly moves from work station to work station where parts are added in sequence until final assembly is produced.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to Lean is a book that covers lean manufacturing principles and thinking, lean leadership moves, the road map for lean transformation, common pitfalls of lean journeys, building an operating system, lean accounting, lean material management, lean in service organizations, and how individuals can apply lean to improve themselves. It concludes with interviews of lean practitioners at Chrysler, Ross Controls, DTE Energy, RSR Corporation, and Nemak.
Lean management is nowadays implemented also in non-manufacturing processes and administrative processes. In non-manufacturing processes is still huge potential for optimization and efficiency increase.[23]
Unlike lean manufacturing, from which the principles and methods of Lean IT derive, Lean IT depends upon value streams that are digital and intangible rather than physical and tangible. This renders difficult the visualization of IT value streams and hence the application of Lean IT. Whereas practitioners of lean manufacturing can apply visual management systems such as the kanban cards used in the Toyota Production System, practitioners of Lean IT must use enterprise IT management tools to help visualize and analyze the more abstract context of IT value streams.
ker, J.I., Wang, Y., Hajli, M.N., Song, J., Ker, C.W. (2014) Deploying Lean in Healthcare: Evaluating Information Technology Effectiveness in US Hospital Pharmacies MacInnes, Richard L. (2002) The Lean Enterprise Memory Jogger. Mika, Geoffrey L. (1999) Kaizen Event Implementation Manual Page, Julian (2003) Implementing Lean Manufacturing Techniques.
Lean project management is the application of lean concepts such as lean construction, lean manufacturing and lean thinking to project management.
Lean project management has many ideas in common with other lean concepts; however, the main principle of lean project management is delivering more value with less waste in a project context.
The following steps should be implemented to create the ideal lean manufacturing system:[29]
What was today to become Lean Six Sigma can be traced to Motorola in the United States in 1986 to compete with the Kaizen business model in Japan. In the 1990s Allied Signal hired Larry Bossidy and introduced Six Sigma in heavy manufacturing. General Electric's Jack Welch consulted Bossidy and began Six Sigma at General Electric.
Lean Consumption is based on Lean Manufacturing, also known as Lean Production. Lean Manufacturing was pioneered by Toyota founder Taiichi Ohno, and revolutionized and streamlined the manufacturing industry. Whereas Lean Manufacturing set out ways to streamline manufacturing processes, Lean Consumption "minimizes customers' time and effort by delivering exactly what they want when and where they want it". Processes are focused on eliminating waste, while increasing productivity, speed of operation and improving customer interaction.
Design for lean manufacturing is a process for applying lean concepts to the design phase of a system, such as a complex product or process. The term describes methods of design in lean manufacturing companies as part of the study of Japanese industry by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the time of the study, the Japanese automakers were outperforming the American counterparts in speed, resources used in design, and design quality. Conventional mass-production design focuses primarily on product functions and manufacturing costs; however,design for lean manufacturing systematically widens the design equation to include all factors that will determine a product's success across its entire value stream and life-cycle. One goal is to reduce waste and maximize value, and other goals include improving the quality of the design and the reducing the time to achieve the final solution. The method has been used in architecture, healthcare, product development, processes design, information technology systems, and even to create lean business models. It relies on the definition and optimization of values coupled with the prevention of wastes before they enter the system. Design for lean manufacturing is system design.
The Agile ideology can be traced back to the Lean manufacturing principles developed at Toyota in the 1950s. Lean manufacturing focuses on eliminating waste in the manufacturing process. The basic intention is to maximize efficiency during manufacturing with a view to enhance productivity and lower costs. Back then, the Agile retail concept was applied mainly to the manufacturing of hard goods such as automobiles.
Lean enterprise is a practice focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. The term has historically been associated with lean manufacturing and Six Sigma (or Lean Six Sigma) due to lean principles being popularized by Toyota in the automobile manufacturing industry and subsequently the electronics and internet software industries.
In , some practitioners have combined Six Sigma ideas with lean manufacturing to create a methodology named Lean Six Sigma. The Lean Six Sigma methodology views lean manufacturing, which addresses process flow and waste issues, and Six Sigma, with its focus on variation and design, as complementary disciplines aimed at promoting "business and operational excellence".
After adopting the lean approach, both managers and employees experience change. Therefore, decisive leaders are needed when starting on a lean journey. There are several requirements to control the lean journey. First and most importantly, experts recommend that the organization have its own lean plan, developed by the lean Leadership. In other words, the lean team provides suggestions for the leader who then makes the actual decisions about what to implement. Second, coaching is recommended when the organization starts off on its lean journey. They will impart their knowledge and skills to shopfloor staff and the lean implementation will be much more efficient. Third, the metrics or measurements used for measuring lean and improvements are extremely important. It will enable collection of the data required for informed decision-making by a leader. One cannot successfully implement lean without sufficient aptitude at measuring the process and outputs. To control and improve results going forward, one must see and measure, i.e. map, what is happening now.[34]
One criticism of lean is that its practitioners may focus on tools and methodologies rather than on the philosophy and culture of lean. Consequently, adequate management is needed in order to avoid failed implementation of lean methodologies.[31] Another pitfall is that management decides what solution to use without understanding the true problem and without consulting shop floor personnel. As a result, lean implementations often look good to the manager but fail to improve the situation.[31]
A3 problem solving Cellular manufacturing Efficiency Movement 5S (methodology) Industrial engineering Ishikawa diagram Just-in-time manufacturing JobShopLean Kanban Key performance indicator Lean CFP driven Lean dynamics Lean higher education Lean Six Sigma Lean software development Lean thinking Poka-yoke Production flow analysis Push-pull strategy Six Sigma Spaghetti plot Takt time Total productive maintenance Value stream mapping
Agile manufacturing is seen as the next step after lean manufacturing in the evolution of production methodology. The key difference between the two is like between a thin and an athletic person, agile being the latter. One can be neither, one or both. In manufacturing theory, being both is often referred to as leagile.
According to Martin Christopher, when companies have to decide what to be, they have to look at the customer order cycle (COC) (the time the customers are willing to wait) and the leadtime for getting supplies. If the supplier has a short lead time, lean production is possible. If the COC is short, agile production is beneficial.
As lean manufacturing has become more widely implemented, the extension of lean principles is beginning to spread to IT (and other service industries). Industry analysts have identified many similarities or analogues between IT and manufacturing. For example, whereas the manufacturing function manufactures goods of value to customers, the IT function “manufactures” business services of value to the parent organization and its customers. Similar to manufacturing, the development of business services entails resource management, demand management, quality control, security issues, and so on.
Lean manufacturing is different from lean enterprise. Recent research reports the existence of several lean manufacturing processes but of few lean enterprises.[35] One distinguishing feature opposes lean accounting and standard cost accounting. For standard cost accounting, SKUs are difficult to grasp. SKUs include too much hypothesis and variance, i.e., SKUs hold too much indeterminacy. Manufacturing may want to consider moving away from traditional accounting and adopting lean accounting. In using lean accounting, one expected gain is activity-based cost visibility, i.e., measuring the direct and indirect costs at each step of an activity rather than traditional cost accounting that limits itself to labor and supplies.
An essential point about these differences is summarized in the advice Jim Womack gives Harley Davidson: ""Don't try to bring lean manufacturing upstream to product development. The application of Lean in product development and manufacturing are different. Some aspects may look similar, but they are not! Be leery of an expert with experience in lean manufacturing that claims to know product development"" 
Design for lean manufacturing is based on the premise that product and process design is an ongoing activity and not a one-time activity; therefore design for lean manufacturing should be viewed as a long term strategy for an organization. Design for lean manufacturing must be sustainable and holistic unlike other lean manufacturing or Six Sigma approaches that either tackle only a part of the problem or tackle the problem for a short period of time. Design for lean manufacturing also relates to system thinking as it considers all aspects (or the full circle) and takes the system conditions into consideration when designing products and services, delivering them according to customer needs. ® (Munro & Associates) drives prevention of waste by adopting a systematic process to improve the design phase during development. An organizational focus is required for the implementation of Lean Design ® principles, which includes efficient and sustainable design team. Initial studies of the Japanese approach to design for lean manufacturing noted four principles; leadership of projects by a shusa (or project boss), tightly knit teams, communication on all of the difficult design trade-offs, and simultaneous development between engineering and manufacturing. Further study showed additional depth to the principles, citing 13 principles specific to the Toyota design for lean manufacturing methods in product and process development in the areas of process, skilled people, and tools and technology. As the practice of design for lean manufacturing has expanded in its depth and breadth of application, additional principles have been integrated into the method.To be successful, a corporate wide design for lean manufacturing implementation typically includes the following dimensions:
Design a simple manufacturing system Recognize that there is always room for improvement Continuously improve the lean manufacturing system design
Lean as a fixed state or goal (being lean) Lean as a continuous change process (becoming lean) Lean as a set of tools or methods (doing lean/toolbox lean) Lean as a philosophy (lean thinking)
It was with Taiichi Ohno at Toyota that these themes came together. He built on the already existing internal schools of thought and spread their breadth and use into what has now become the Toyota Production System (TPS). It is principally from the TPS (which was widely referred to in the 1980s as just-in-time manufacturing), but now including many other sources, that lean production is developing. Norman Bodek wrote the following in his foreword to a reprint of Ford's Today and Tomorrow: