Several reasons why you need to use lean manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is one of the best ways to improve your company's processes and to take your company forward. If you have struggled with a lot of product defects and you have customers that are very upset with your organization, lean manufacturing may be the best option you have to win these customers back. Lean manufacturing has several different tools that can be used in order to aid in reducing errors and helping to organize the company.

Toyota is given credit with developing lean manufacturing as it was initially created and launched there. It was created in order to reduce problems and defects in the manufacturing process of their vehicles and other products. It has been such an instrumental process for Toyota that many other companies have turned to it as well because of the high profits and results that have been shown from it.

Unlike many other manufacturing programs, lean manufacturing is actually very easy to understand and it is practical to implement. This makes it a versatile program and can be used by just about any organization. For it to work successfully your staff must be committed to it. Effective implementation relies heavily on your ability to believe in the program and to focus on making it work.

You can hire a lean consultant to come in and start the program for you and train your staff or you can choose to do this on your own. If you do it on your own you will need to undergo a lot of different training programs and seminars that ensure you understand the program and that you can focus on training your employees to play their specific roles in the program.

Lean manufacturing is focused on the reduction or elimination of waste. The main strategies are centered around identifying wastes and then eliminating them. Wastes can be anything from paying too much for raw goods to paying employees to stand around or engage in behaviors that are not productive to the organization. This is why lean manufacturing is more than fixing the assembly line it is also a mindset change of your employees and allows you to get more production value out of your staff.

Here are some of the other wastes that you can easily eliminate when you turn to lean manufacturing.

1. Over-production. This is one of the things you will notice initially when lean manufacturing is implemented. You have so many organizations that are producing too many products that just sit on inventory shelves. When this happens it leads to a decline in the product value.


2. Reduced labor costs. When you work with lean manufacturing you will be able to see a decrease in labor costs because employees are no longer over-processing the raw materials and other things needed to create finished products.


3. Motion productive. With the elimination of wastes you will be able to finally re-organize your facilities to allow for free space. This makes it easier for motion to occur as employees have room to move around and this will help them to increase production.


4. Inventory reduction. Lean manufacturing spends a great deal of time focusing on just-in-time manufacturing which means you create products for customers when they are ordered. You don't have a large warehouse filled with inventory because it can reduce the overall costs of your products value. Inventory is seen as a big waste so you only keep enough on stock to allow for simple orders.


5. Prevent waiting time. A lot of time is wasted in companies when employees are waiting on machinery to produce the products you need along with waiting on other people to get their jobs done.