LEAN

Lean – aka Toyota Production System (TPS) – invented by Taiichi Ohno:

• Lean evolved at Toyota over the last 50 years – its goal is to eliminate waste and continuously improve productivity in every area of work, including customer relations, product design, supplier networks and factory management

• Wikipedia says Lean aims ‘to produce less low-value human effort, less inventory, less time to develop products, and become highly responsive to customer demand while producing top quality, error-proofed products in the most efficient and economical manner’

• There are five principles which define the Lean process:
  • Provide what the customer wants, defect free
  • Provide what’s required on demand, exactly as requested
  • Provide an immediate response to problems or required changes
  • Provide what’s required with a minimum of waste
  • Provide what’s required safely, both for the customer and the supplier

• Lean is said to address seven deadly wastes:
  • Overproduction – production getting ahead of demand
  • Transportation – moving things unnecessarily
  • Waiting – for the next production step
  • Inventory – when not being processed
  • Motion – moving more than necessary to complete a process
  • Over-processing – due to poor tool or product design
  • Defects – the effort involved in inspecting for or fixing defects

• Lean seeks to improve the flow (smoothness) of work by production levelling:
  • UK car manufacturers used to forecast demand, make to stock, sell what was in stock and then deliver as best they could
  • By contrast, Toyota total up their actual demand, turn their output volume controls to suit, meet all the variety demanded and deliver fast

• However, Lean practitioners tend to focus on cutting specific task times and costs – and that could even increase overall costs – if many of those tasks are unnecessary for the customer, cutting their costs by 10% say would make little sense

• Hence, always focus on why and how you do things for customers, and the Order Cycle Time (OCT) – big cost reductions tend to follow when you improve things for customers first