Lean Manufacturing- Smart way of customer care

“The survival of the fittest” by Charles Darwin

Wastage reduction in the manufacturing house is the lifeline of sustainable and profitable growth in the business.

In manufacturing operations, the three Ps—product, process, and people—are crucial for business excellence.

The product should be high Quality, and USP should have a consistent reputation.

The process should be robust and cost-effective to have customer satisfaction.

People should be trained and skilled to practice manufacturing excellence and consistently produce products.

Eventually, the process outcome will be minimal Waste, and the organization will have business excellence.

Lean Manufacturing is a production process that maximizes productivity while minimizing Waste within a manufacturing operation.

Lean Manufacturing is all about providing the best value to customers for which customers are willing to pay.

Lean Manufacturing is a holistic approach to reducing Waste in a manufacturing process without compromising Quality and productivity.

Lean is a systematic approach to reduce or eliminate activities that don’t add value to the process. It emphasizes removing wasteful steps in a process and taking only value-added steps.

The Lean method ensures high Quality and customer satisfaction. It helps in • reducing process cycle time, • improving product or service delivery time, • reducing or eliminating the chance of defect generation, • reducing inventory levels, and • optimizing resources for key improvements, among others.

Lean is a never-ending approach to waste removal, thus promoting a continuous chain of improvements. It can be applied to manufacturing and service industries. Lean finds its application in any environment where process wastes are witnessed.

In this article we will focus on –

A. Evolution of Lean Manufacturing

B. Non-value-added activity(NVA)

C. Value-added activity(NVA)

D. Enabling Value-added activity(EVA)

E. Principle of Lean

F. Types of Waste

G. Tools to eliminate Waste

H. Importance of Lean

I. Root Cause analysis and eliminating the cause

J. Management Role in Lean Manufacturing

K. Role of Team Leader

L. Implementation Road map of Lean management

— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — A. Evolution of Lean Manufacturing-

Ford introduced the mass production concept in 1913 to produce many cars. This strategy allowed continuous movement of the elements through the production process and standardized the manufacturing assembly. This strategy became a massive hit for Ford because it could produce 8,000 cars daily.

In 1950, Eiji Toyota visited Ford’s Plant to understand the concept, but he realized that this concept would not work for Toyota because i. the Japanese market is too small and diverse for mass production, and ii. In Japan, the idea was to fulfill mixed requirements like Compact, Sedan, and luxury types. Ford was based on mass production of specific requirements.

After that, Toyota Collaborated with Taiichi Ohno to invent a new way of production and introduce the Toyota Production System (TPS), and in 1988, John Krafcik coined the term “Lean.”

So, the Lean concept obtains its genesis from the Toyota Production System (TPS). The TPS model is typically well-suited for a High-Volume Production environment.

Nowadays, Lean is being adopted by service sectors with both arms. Value Depending on the type of business process & industry context, the customer defines “value.” “Value” is related to the customer’s perception of the product(s) or service(s) that they are willing to pay for.

Most importantly, we must understand that a process is a set of activities that converts inputs into outputs using resources. These activities can be classified into three types.

They are:

B. Non-value-added activity(NVA): These activities do not add value to the processor products. They are wasteful steps. Customers don’t willingly pay for the costs associated with these activities. Instead, if presented excessively, they result in customer dissatisfaction.

C. Value-added activity(VA): These activities add value to the process and are essential. They improve processes for productivity and Quality.

D. Enabling value-added activity(EVA): These activities do not add value to a customer but are necessary for the continuity of a process. In any process, almost 80–85% of activities are non-value-adding activities.

The LEAN approach aims to identify the NVA, VA, and EVA in the process and use specific lean tools to eliminate or reduce them. Thus, Lean improves process efficiency. Process waste identified in Lean Methodology is known as “Muda”(wastefulness).

Muda is a Japanese term for Waste, which Shigeo Shingo introduced.

E. Principle of Lean- The Lean is based on five principles-

1. Identify the customer’s requirements, design products that precisely meet those needs, remove unnecessary features, and eliminate Waste and excess cost from the manufacturing process.

2. VSM—Value stream mapping states the journey of a product from raw materials to delivery to the customer. VSM is a visual tool that shows the critical steps in a specific process and eliminates the wasteful steps that do not add any value.

3. Create or continuous flow — The constant and nonstop process creates value in the value chain, from raw materials to delivery to the customer.

4. Establish or create a pull system- It is an essential principle in lean management; it is similar to JIT-just in time. By doing that, we can use the workspace optimally, practice better inventory management, mitigate over or under-production, and eradicate the mistakes due to excess WIP.

5. Continuous improvement or seeking perfection — Working towards perfection should be the target in our daily lives, with a minor or one-degree improvement so that we can achieve a big target over some time. To fulfill these tasks, the kaizen tool is the best to adapt.

F. Types of Waste-

Type 1 &2

MUDA(Waste)- Muda is essential in lean Manufacturing to discuss.

There are two types of Waste (MUDA-wastefulness) in lean Manufacturing that need to be identified-

Type 1- Non-value-added activity(NVA)- The activity that does not add any value to the process customer’s perspective.

Type 2 — TIMWOOD-the abbreviation of-

i) Transport—The excess movement of goods from one location to another is also a type of Waste. Companies like Toyota, Suzuki, and Toyota are cautious about avoiding transportation waste. That is why most of the suppliers are situated near the production unit.

ii) Inventory- Excess Inventory is a blockage of finance. Maintaining them also is a cost. Excess inventory is due to excess production when the demand forecasting is inaccurate.

iii) Motion- The Movement of man, machines, and products does not add any value; instead, it leads to Waste. It generally happens when the organization needs to follow the 5S principle. Poorly designed work space attracts unwanted movement, leading to a Waste of motion.

iv) Waiting- This Waste happens if the subsequent process step is still prepared.

v) Overproduction- If an organization creates excess inventory to meet the unexpected market demands, this strategy fails when the market fluctuates or changes more frequently, and overproduction causes losses.

vi) Over-processing is the reworking or reprocessing of the goods, which includes repeated time and workforce consumption; over-processed products become less efficient.

vii)Defects—These rejected products have no value and are completely wasted and scrapped. They do not comply with the product’s specifications. To destroy such Waste, the organization needs to spend extra cash.

G. The Eight (8) powerful tools to eliminate Waste-

1. 5S — is the association of five Japanese words. 5S was popularized by Taiichi Ohno, a Toyota engineer known as the Father of 5S. Sort (Seiri), Set in Order (Seiton), Shine (Seiso), Standardize (Seiketsu), and Sustain (Shitsuke)

2. Kaizen—Kaizen means continuous improvement, based on five elements: teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles, and suggestions for improvement.

3. Kanban- Kanban is based on visual signals to inform employees to fill the inventory. In Japanese, kanban translates to “signboard.” Kanban teams represent every work item as a separate card on the board. The primary purpose of representing work as a card on the Kanban board is to allow team members to track progress through its workflow in a highly visual manner.

The Six Rules of Kanban

• Never Deliver Defective Products. …
• Supplier produces items in precise amounts and sequences. …
• Produce the Exact Quantity Required. …
• Reduce Fluctuations. …
• Tune In the Production or Process Optimization. …
• Stabilize and Rationalize the Production Process.

4. Heijunka—meaning Levelling. In this technique, customer demands are leveled across the manufacturing schedule. It helps reduce the load on the workforce, control the inventory, and meet customer demand efficiently.

5. JIT — Just in time means producing a product when a customer needs it, in the required amount, and delivered on time without holding any inventory. It helps in allocating the resources only in creating the products that you have been paid for, it reduces lead time, increases productivity, control inventory.

6. SMED — SMED (Single-Minute Exchange of Die) is a system that dramatically reduces the time to complete equipment changeovers. The essence of the SMED system is to convert as many changeover steps as possible to “external” (performed while the equipment is running) and simplify and streamline the remaining steps.

Three stages of SMED-

• Step 1: Separate. The first step in the SMED process is to separate changeover elements or group them according to their type (internal or external). …
• Step 2: Convert. The second step in the SMED process is converting internal changeover elements to external ones. …
• Step 3: Streamline.

7. POKA-YOKE — This means “mistake proofing,” the principle of POKa-Yoke detects, prevents, and rectifies in producing quality products.

8. VSM- is defined as a lean tool that employs a flowchart documenting every step in the process. Used to analyze, design, and manage the flow of materials and information required to bring a product to a customer

H. How Lean Manufacturing Turns a Company into a World-Class Organization—To become a world-class organization, the most crucial factor is manufacturing excellence, the contribution from each employee, and working on a Lean manufacturing style that maximizes productivity while minimizing Waste. By implementing lean practices, manufacturers will see quality improvements, improved productivity, resource savings, better lead times, improved customer service and satisfaction, improved employee satisfaction, and better sustainability, thus becoming a world-class organization. Lean Manufacturing is very important for the organization’s growth.

I. Root cause analysis RCA and eliminating cause- A powerful tool to prevent the undesired happenings. Root cause analysis (RCA) is the process of discovering the root causes of problems to identify appropriate solutions,
The five steps of RCA-

Define the problem. Analyze what you see happening, and identify the precise symptoms to form a problem statement. The steps are as follows-

Gather data to find the problem.

Identify causal factors to find why the problem occurred and Determine the root cause(s).

Recommend and implement solutions to reduce the possibility of recurrence of the problem.

J. Why management involvement is essential: It ensures 100% results, is serious about the objective, and results flow from top to bottom in the organization. Management identifies the gaps in the team activities and helps address them best to get the team on track.

K. The Role of Team Leader- Team leaders are vital, like a bridge between management and the team. A leader always has three qualities to be successful in his job. i) Domain Expertise ii) Agility for improvement iii) well-versed and conscious of Quality.

L. How to implement lean Manufacturing? -Whenever we implement the Lean methodology for the first time, we should do so slowly and steadily, but we should be watchful for improvement and consistency in practices.

As beginners, we must start the journey with the easy one, i.e.

i) Waste — we must identify the sources & then eliminate the sources

ii) Must promote the continuous improvement- may be small but there should be continuity, at least a one-degree improvement consistently should happen.

iii) Implementation of 5S- 5S is the foundation for lean Manufacturing. These principles minimize non-value-adding activities and help organizations to work efficiently.

iv) Measure the improvement- The organization must keep checking the improvements at regular intervals and new goals to set by management.

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