Lean Principles

Lean Principles– Lean manufacturing, Lean Enterprise, or lean production, often simply, “lean”, is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes a product or service, “value” is defined as any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.

Essentially, lean is centered on preserving value with less work. Lean manufacturing is a management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) (hence the term Toyotism is also prevalent) and identified as “lean” only in the 1990s. TPS is renowned for its focus on reduction of the original Toyota seven wastes to improve overall customer value, but there are varying perspectives on how this is best achieved. The steady growth of Toyota, from a small company to the world’s largest automaker, has focused attention on how it has achieved this success.

Toyota Production System

Lean Principles- The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic “lean manufacturing.” Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo and Eiji Toyoda developed the system between 1948 and 1975.

Originally called “just-in-time production,” it builds on the approach created by the founder of Toyota, Sakichi Toyoda, his son Kiichiro Toyoda, and the engineer Taiichi Ohno. The principles underlying the TPS are embodied in The Toyota Way.

The main objectives of the TPS are to design out overburden (muri) and inconsistency (mura), and to eliminate waste (muda). The most significant effects on process value delivery are achieved by designing a process capable of delivering the required results smoothly; by designing out “mura” (inconsistency). It is also crucial to ensure that the process is as flexible as necessary without stress or “muri” (overburden) since this generates “muda” (waste). Finally, the tactical improvements of waste reduction or the elimination of Muda are very valuable. There are seven kinds of muda that are addressed in the TPS

Waste of over production (largest waste)
Waste of time on hand (waiting)
Waste of transportation
Waste of processing itself
Waste of stock at hand
Waste of movement
Waste of making defective products

The elimination of waste has come to dominate the thinking of many when they look at the effects of the TPS because it is the most familiar of the three to implement. In the TPS many initiatives are triggered by inconsistency or over-run reduction which drives out waste without a specific focus on its reduction.

Value Stream Mapping

Value stream mapping is a lean management method for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that take a product or service from its beginning through to the customer. At Toyota, it is known as “material and information flow mapping”. It can be applied to nearly any value chain.

Planning and preparation. Identify the target product family or service. Create a charter, define the problem, set the goals and objectives, and select the mapping team. Socialize the charter with the leadership team.
Draw while on the shop floor a current state value stream map, which shows the current steps, delays, and information flows required to deliver the target product or service. This may be a production flow (raw materials to consumer) or a design flow (concept to launch). There are ‘standard’ symbols for representing supply chain entities.
Assess the current state value stream map in terms of creating flow by eliminating waste.
Draw a future state value stream map.
Work toward the future state condition.

5S
Lean Principles- 5S is the name of a workplace organization method that uses a list of five Japanese words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. Transliterated or translated into English, they all start with the letter “S”.

The list describes how to organize a work space for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used, maintaining the area and items, and sustaining the new order. The decision-making process usually comes from a dialogue about standardization, which builds understanding among employees of how they should do the work.

There are five primary 5S phases: They can be translated from the Japanese as Sort, Systematize, Shine, Standardize and Self-Discipline. Other translations are possible.

1. Seiri

Remove unnecessary items and dispose of them properly
Make work easier by eliminating obstacles
Reduce chance of being disturbed with unnecessary items
Prevent accumulation of unnecessary items
Evaluate necessary items with regard to debt/cost/other factors.

2. Seiton

Arrange all necessary items in order so they can be easily picked for use
Prevent loss and waste of time
Make it easy to find and pick up necessary items
Ensure first-come-first-serve basis
Make workflow smooth and easy
Can also be translated as “set in order”

3. Seiso

Clean your workplace completely
Use cleaning as inspection
Prevent machinery and equipment deterioration
Keep workplace safe and easy to work
Can also be translated as “sweep”

4. Seiketsu

Maintain high standards of housekeeping and workplace organization at all times
Maintain cleanliness and orderliness
Maintain everything in order and according to its standard.

5. Shitsuke

To keep in working order
Also translates to “Self-Discipline” meaning to do without being told

Theory of constraints

The theory of constraints (TOC) is a management paradigm that views any manageable system as being limited in achieving more of its goals by a very small number of constraints. There is always at least one constraint, and TOC uses a focusing process to identify the constraint and restructure the rest of the organization around it.

TOC adopts the common idiom “a chain is no stronger than its weakest link.” This means that processes, organizations, etc., are vulnerable because the weakest person or part can always damage or break them or at least adversely affect the outcome.

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