Preview

lean thinking

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
989 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
lean thinking
From the eighteen-sixties, the industrial revolution, with its main characteristic of development of manufacturing management, swept across the world. Before the transition of production methods to new manufacturing processes, organisations faced problems relating to their effectiveness, speed of reaction, and flexibility, and these had formed a bottleneck restricting the development of enterprises. It was in 1950 that Toyota Motor Corporation first proposed Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing systems. Some years later, through its assembly with Kaizen, Total Quality Management, Total Productive Maintenance, Cellular Manufacturing and Six Sigma this would lead to the emergence of the Lean Manufacturing production system, which focuses mainly on the elimination of waste with the purpose of achieving more with less (Ballard, 2003).

It has been widely acknowledged that to become a lean organization there is a need to introduce a new management approach of a strategic, managerial, structural, organisational and operational nature. Firstly, from a strategic perspective, without fully understanding the scope and the value of lean initiatives, senior management may fail to see the importance of improvement in the operational area and to positively influence the whole company. The situation may even worsen as companies are unwilling to commit to “lean” as a long term goal (Roggenhofer, 2004). Secondly, some case studies reveal that the consequences of late implementation are poor project planning and a lack of management involvement. Thirdly, Benedetto (2007) claims that “lean” cannot succeed without a supportive human resource policy, in which all team members are encouraged to work together to create value for customers. Fourthly, in accordance with Hines (2008), a helpful organisational culture plays an important role in implementing “lean”. High performing companies place a heavy emphasis on developing a culture that advocates sustainability, continuous improvement

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    This book does not imitate the same lean concepts you have read a dozen times before, but adds to the discussion and knowledge of lean. The book’s structure is unique because there is practically no focus on specific application of tools. Readers will not see chapters devoted to works cells, value stream mapping, kaizen, Five S, or any other tools. This is good because lean suffers too much from teaching the application of lean tools before teaching an understanding of true lean thinking. This book also does a great job at expressing the importance of effective communication from company leaders to develop the organization’s culture during their lean transformation. The final section of the book, which includes interviews with five lean leaders, was one of the most beneficial from a learning perspective. The champions’ varied responses were very educational and inspirational and gave an insightful, firsthand perspective of their lean journeys which would provide reference for any new or complacent lean thinker. I would recommend this to book anyone who is interested in the lean way of thinking and I would strongly recommend it to those who are just beginning their lean journey or to those who have struggled with lean and are looking for additional tips and ideas to get their lean journey back…

    • 1419 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lean Production

    • 2877 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Lean production is widely understood to be production based upon a range of waste saving measures inspired by Japanese manufacturing companies, particularly the Kaizen and Just in time techniques. Metov’s plastics have taken the decision upon themselves to incorporate some of the characteristics of lean production namely time management and critical path analysis into their manufacturing process and I will examine these.…

    • 2877 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The consulting company, Lean Dynamics, deployed lean process in short terms so that employees can be convinced of its power. However, further improvement requires the lean improvement cycle to be implemented over time.…

    • 607 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Virginia Mason Hospital

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Lean thinking begins with driving out waste so that all work adds value and serves the customer’s needs. Identifying value-added and non-value-added steps in every process is the beginning of the journey toward lean operations. In order for lean principles to take root, leaders must first work to create an organizational culture that is receptive to lean thinking. The commitment to lean must start at the very top of the organization, and all staff should be involved in helping to redesign processes to improve flow and reduce waste.…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Better Essays

    Use of the term lean has begun to replace use of the term JIT, and is associated with the Toyota Production system. Lean is broader, although closely related to JIT, and describes a philosophy incorporating tools that seek to economically optimize time, human resources, assets, and productivity, while improving product and service quality. In the early 1980s, these practices started making their way to the Western world, first as JIT and then today, as lean production or lean manufacturing. Lean production has evolved into a way of doing business for many organizations. Quality assessment and improvement is a necessary element of lean production. First, as the process of waste elimination begins to shrink inventories, problems with human resource requirements, queues, lead times, quality and timing are typically uncovered both in production and with inbound and outbound materials. Eventually, these problems are remedied, resulting in higher levels of quality and customer service. Second, as the drive to continuously reduce throughput times continues, the need for a continuing emphasis on improving quality throughout the productive system results in the need for an overall quality improvement or Six Sigma program. Six Sigma stresses a commitment by the firm’s top management to enable the firm to identify customer expectations and excel in meeting and exceeding those expectations. Since environmental changes and changes in technology and competition cause customer expectations to change, firms must then commit to a program of continual reassessment and improvement; this, too, is an integral part of Six Sigma quality. Thus, to achieve the primary objectives of low cost, high quality, and reduced lead times, supply chain management requires the use of lean and Six Sigma…

    • 1026 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    At the last two pages of the article author talked about the resistances and challenge of lean construction. The resistances include difficult implementation of lean construction and conflict with current principles. The challenge is form traditional organization structure – hierarchical organization. Lean construction decentralizes decisions that may weaken top management, so it also requires commitment by managers and all employees in the company.…

    • 323 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    critically reviewed 18 articles describing the implementation of Lean in 15 EDs in the United States, Australia,…

    • 10376 Words
    • 42 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many things can be done in a manufacturing enterprise in order to increase its performance. Special consideration should be given to the activities where the most benefit can be attained. The elimination of waste is the most important contributor to improvement in a lean manufacturing environment.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    While the benefits of successful implementation were attractive, the company faced several challenges, including restructuring the organization, getting staff on board to accept and facilitate the change, and handling resistance from internal and external stakeholders. This case provides an opportunity to analyze and discuss lean implementation issues for a global multinational firm in the Indian context.…

    • 432 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    The lean concept started in the manufacturing industry with Toyota Motor Company being given the credit of developing the approach (Duclos et al., 1995) and it is often also referred to as lean production, lean manufacturing, Toyota manufacturing systems etc. The term Lean as defined by the National Institute of Standards and Technology Manufacturing Extension Partnership’s Lean Network is “a systematic approach to identifying and eliminating waste through continuous improvement, flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection” (Kilpatrick, 2003). The term…

    • 4994 Words
    • 20 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Advagraf Case Study

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The Toyota Motor company who manufacture automobiles and trucks were at the time being out produced by American motor companies. This was when Japanese industrial leaders such as Toyada, Shig Shingo, and Taciichi Ohno developed a new discipline which was process-oriented and is known today as “Toyota Production System”, or “Lean Manufacturing”. As mentioned above waste reduction is one of the dimensions necessary for continuous improvements, which the Toyota production system focuses on identifying the main source of waste, this is where when lean tools come into play such as Just in Time (JIT), production smoothing, setup reduction are used to eliminate the waste. These industrial leaders also identified that the first point of appreciation is the customer. Therefore, the company should always be aware of the customer desires for the product they are producing. (Borris,…

    • 1381 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Eliminating waste and items that are not of value inside an organization is called Lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing will help save the company in the long run. The lean manufacturing was created by Sakichi Toyoda from the Toyota Production System. (Toyota Production System, 2015) This was made to help the company reduce inventory. It helped them not only lower wasted material but improve productivity. The purpose of this paper is to review lean manufacturing and how the core elements relate to AIG.…

    • 823 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Feasibility UCD

    • 2947 Words
    • 12 Pages

    HINES, P., HOLWEG, M. & RICH, N. 2004. Learning to Evolve: A Review of Contemporary Lean Thinking. International Journal of Operations & Production…

    • 2947 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lean Six Sigma is a business strategy and methodology that increases process performance resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction and improved bottomline results. Lean Six Sigma is needed because organizations and individuals need a methodology for improvement and problem solving. The integration of Lean and Six Sigma aims to target every type of opportunity for improvement within an organisation. Whereas Six Sigma is used mostly at large scale in companies to get results which are directed towards large profits for the company. But Lean is used at each & every level of the company to achieve results which are though short term but have large effects when used continuously for a long time. If the two are actually implemented in isolation, the outcome can result in neither being done effectively; constrained by one another’s needs in the organisation. Again, it could even create two subcultures within the organisation, competing for…

    • 4182 Words
    • 17 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Lean thinking is a strategy that completely eliminates waste while doing more with less efforts, equipment and time (Wormack & Jones, 2003). Its implementation is somehow difficult as many organizations believe they have achieved lean why they are not. Implementation of lean should critically analyze the following ; elimination of waste, production strategy, quality control, quality improvement, management and employee commitment, vendor and supplier participation. (Marodin & Saurin, 2013).…

    • 662 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays