The basic philosophy of lean manufacturing

What is the basic philosophy of lean manufacturing? There are several different methods that are in place to help you create an effective program. Lean manufacturing programs have been around for a long time and with the right managers and mindset change, your company will be able to succeed.

Lean manufacturing was first introduced to the world from Toyota. They developed it as a way to eliminate wastes and to improve their manufacturing process. For a long time manufacturing companies have struggled with space and inventory concerns. When you produce too many products, you end up taking a lot of space to store them, which is costly. The other downside is that the products start to lose their value over time as people won't pay as much for products that are outdated. When a product loses its value, you lose out on a lot of potential income.

For most manufacturing plants the main reason behind implementing lean manufacturing is to eliminate wastes. When you have a lot of overhead and other issues arising, lean manufacturing is by far the easiest way to finally get rid of those wastes and to have better products.

Basically with lean manufacturing the main philosophy behind it is to stop the wastes and to remove anything that doesn't add value to your products. This means all of the time your employees spend waiting to get the products created is a waste. It also means that any equipment that fails to function at it's top level is also a waste, which is why it is important to have your manufacturing equipment serviced regularly in order to ensure that it will be able to work at it's peak performance.

What makes lean manufacturing a nice program for any business is the ability to have multiple methods to choose from. You have several tools that you can use like Just-in-time manufacturing, Kaizen, Kanban, and even Fixed repeating schedule. With all of these programs you will be able to find a system that allows you to easily improve productivity, increase employee morale, and eliminate wastes. Supply chain concerns have plagued manufacturing plants for years. This is where the lean manufacturing methods can come into play as they each help to align the system with your suppliers and distributors. Using a system of lights and other things, your supply chain will be fixed and operating in an effective manner.

One of the other things you will be able to notice when you turn to lean manufacturing is the ability to have finished goods properly packed and shipped out in a timely manner. The production time will be dramatically fixed as the system will make the products to order, which also means you are less likely to have excess inventory items to worry about. With inventory wastes under control and employees getting their products on time, you will have happier customers but also happier employees. They no longer need to spend hours fixing things that should never have had issues in the first place.

No matter which type of lean manufacturing system you decide to use, it is a good idea to consider researching all of the various options. By doing this you will be able to have an idea of how you can continue working on improving your organization through the various lean manufacturing systems that are available. Some companies like to use the 5 S method as it does allow you to implement the entire system at the same time or you can choose to implement it in individual steps. Always follow through with the entire program or it will not be a success.