Lean manufacturing is the manufacturing system for future. Here we have a great collection of lean manufacturing articles and resources for you
By Patrick Steiner
Lean Manufacturing is the principle of increasing revenue not just by increasing sales but by reducing waste. The Lean Manufacturing philosophy names seven major wastes that should be dealt with - Over-production, Transportation, Waiting time, Processing, Motion, Inventory, and Scrap. The idea here is that only when one is able to control the waste that goes here can one truly be able to control earnings and expenditure.
Lean, as in free from superficial baggage, aims to help manufacturers become more cost efficient and less wasteful. The principle follows a domino effect. If waste is reduced, then by the process that reduces waste, the quality of the product is increased. If the quality of the product is increased, the production time and the production cost decreases. This whole scenario ends up with an increase in total revenue from sales.
If the process is able to minimize or eliminate the following, then the production will be said to be in its lean form. Also, with Lean Manufacturing follows greater income, greater quality, and less waste an interesting for any company whether they are already pulling down a good amount of revenue or if they are flagging in their sales.
Defects
This involves creating a process that minimizes defects. It also puts in place a system for recognizing and fixing defects. Also defects should be fixed at the source instead of when it has gone through production and landed in the hands of the customer.
Overproduction
The creation of surplus, unsellable products has been a problem for a long time now. There is an optimal balance where that the production is able to produce just the right number of products to satisfy consumer demand. Beyond this, there is only waste. Also, this is what Lean Manufacturing is trying to avoid waste.
Transportation
The ideal is to be able to transport the product with the least amount of effort and energy possible. This involves transporting products no further than is necessary by demands. The waste of transportation is then avoided.
Waiting
To get optimal production, one needs to set up a production pipline wherein there is minimal or no waiting between stages. The wait time between stages is wasted time. Also, wasted time is wasted resources.
Good production management allows for the right loading of processes so that a process always has something to do and has no down time or slack time. This calls for the proper timing of production schedules so as to reduce wasted time and effort.
Inventory
While an inventory has to be reasonably stocked, it should follow that the inventory should not be overstocked. If there is a discrepancy between the supply and demand, then there is sure to be waste. The best proposition here is to have the supply and demand meet dead center so that there is no waste in production, nor is there no loss in income due to underutilization of demand.
Motion
Wasted motion results from such activities as repeatedly looking for lost tools or papers. It also results from the lack of proper scheduling of activities so that these activities can be done in the most efficient of ways.
This results in the Japanese habit of cleaning up and organizing their things every so often. This gives them a good idea of where their equipment is, and how the equipment should be taken care of. Most companies try to teach their employees to be efficient not only with equipment time and motion but with their activities as well.
Processing
A process can ultimately be fine tuned and modified so that it is in a constant state of improvement. A process cannot hope to be perfect the first time out. Also, neither can a perfect system remain perfect for long.
Process planning should adapt to current situations and should be ever critical of self. Only then can there be any meaningful and productive change in the processing system. Most acclaimed manufacturers have a system by that the organization can modify and improve its manufacturing system.
About the Author: For more great manufacturing related articles and resources check out http://manufacturingadvice.info
Source: www.isnare.com
Posted by Azwath at 12:55 AM 1 comments
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By Peter Peterka
Lean Six Sigma combines the quality improvements that come from using Six Sigma with the speed improvements that come from using Lean manufacturing principles . Six Sigma is a disciplined, data-driven approach and methodology for eliminating defects in any process -- from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. Lean manufacturing focuses on improving the speed of a process and the elimination of waste primarily by eliminating non-value added steps. Lean Flow and Six Sigma are strongly compatible. Combining these two powerful process improvement methods are combining the contents of two toolboxes that can help your organization improve quality and efficiency.
Lean Six Sigma and Lean Flow initiatives go by many names, including Lean Enterprise, Lean Manufacturing, Lean Sigma, and Lean Service. These concepts are a natural complement to Six Sigma and can be applied to every type of business and process. Both Lean and Six Sigma have points of commonality in their strategies and methods. Both are built around the idea that businesses are composed of processes that serve customer needs. They share the goal to identify and eliminate sources of waste and activities that do not add value, in order to create flow with maximum productivity, capacity, and throughput. Both place great emphasis on training to bring members of an organization to a high level of understanding and expertise on the tools and processes of the methodology. Also, both lean and Six Sigma require and encourage the engagement of management and key mentors within the organization to assure that the prioritized projects are executed as part of a way of doing business.
Lean methods and data are used to reduce costs, shorten cycle times, expand capacity, and improve productivity. Lean concepts and the Lean Flow system quickly identify improvement opportunities through the use of value stream mapping. Lean emphasizes all-encompassing principles together with targeted recommendations to achieve improvements. However, Lean principles are oftentimes inadequate to solve some of the more complicated problems that require advanced analysis.
Because Six Sigma requires in-depth statistical metrics to analyze quality at all levels of the supply chain, eliminating defects it can improve all Lean methods. Six Sigma – when combined with Lean – allows for easier identification and quicker resolution of quality issues or problems, and reaps quick results while opening people's eyes to new and better possibilities on plant floors. Six Sigma's core implementation strategy of establishing dedicated Six Sigma champions and black belts who oversee and mentor process improvement projects provides crucial structure and guidance, thus greatly enhancing Lean initiatives. Therefore, Six Sigma is very valuable when introduced during the deployment of Lean principles to ensure that the improvement roadmap includes a generic problem-solving approach.
Lean Six Sigma creates greater understanding of the value of your work by defining it as something that your customers want to pay for. Lean Six Sigma helps build customer loyalty by driving improvement in areas most important to your customers. Its metrics generate clear targeting of customer needs, and drives real, tangible value creation.
Lean Six Sigma is a highly sustainable approach that becomes woven into the fabric of the organization and involving people at all levels - from the executive suite to the front line. Full deployment of Lean Six Sigma will f oster an environment of continuous improvement where the cultural norm of your organization becomes striving for the total elimination of waste through a succession of small, action-oriented ( kaizen ) events within the production process.
Lean Six Sigma fulfills your overall strategy and future success by significantly improving quality and reducing waste. It empowers every employee with new ways of thinking about your processes and helps make drastic improvements to the organization's performance. Lean Six Sigma creates a powerful linkage from your strategic priorities to operational improvements and facilitates the transformation of a business.
About the Author: http://www.6sigma.us/ Peter Peterka is the Principal Consultant in practice areas of DMAIC and DFSS. Peter has eleven years of experience performing as a Master Black Belt, and has over 15 years experience in industry as an improvement specialist and engineer working with numerous companies.
Source: www.isnare.com
Posted by Azwath at 12:23 AM 0 comments
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By Oskar Olofsson
The young production manager speaks enthusiastically to the top management team. He has just returned to the plant after attending an inspiring seminar and now he is convinced that they need to do something.
"We should implement Lean Production and TPM in our plant", he says. "This will make our production more reliable and increase our delivery accuracy".
The MD is paying attention but is not yet convinced. He wants to put the ideas to a test.
"Looks interesting", he says, "Please come back with a good calculation of the Return on Investment so that we can see if it fits into next year's budget."
This is where the story might end. How could you possible estimate costs and benefits from such advanced management techniques as TPM and Lean Production? These concepts are known to be difficult to plan in advance, and they require a mind-shift for everybody in the facility.
Well, it may be difficult but you have to do the calculation anyway. Arguments as "we have to do this" or "everybody else is doing it" are just not convincing enough.
A change project must be looked upon as an investment that will come with initial costs and hopefully bring something back in return. This is no different from any other investments. If you can not give an educated guess on its financial impact, there is a big risk that the project might not be given the necessary resources for what it needs to succeed. Even if the financial impact of important factors such as shorter lead times and better delivery accuracy are not known, we need to describe how this project will raise profits in the company.
To give an answer to these important questions we have put together some simple guidelines for you to use, and if you prefer, a free calculation tool that you may use to do your own estimations.
What will the costs be?
The main cost will consist of:
Training and Consultancy
No successful implementation of TPM and Lean Production has succeeded without the help of experienced professionals. You will have to train your employees and you need support in your project team. A good estimation is a yearly cost of $100.000 per 100 employees involved
Increased initial maintenance costs
Elimination of manufacturing wastes and implementation of improvement ideas are likely to increase the maintenance costs. Expect maintenance to increase up to 20% the first year, but with it stabilizing at a level less than today after one to two years
Project team members
You will need people to run the project. Project management and coaching equals to about one full-time coordinator per 100 employees in the facility
Benefits
Increased Overall Equipment Efficiency (OEE) is the main factor that may be used to approximate the return on the efforts. Simply speaking, the OEE is the ratio of the facility's actual output compared to the theoretical output that would be possible if the machinery was run at full speed every minute, without break-downs, lack of raw material, quality losses or set-ups. As the OEE-ratio is a direct reflection of your plant's capacity, it may be used to calculate the future productivity after improvements.
An example: A plant produces 10,000 units per year with an OEE-ratio of 50 percent. After improvement, the project team estimates that it will be possible to reach an OEE-ratio of 80 percent. This means that they will be capable to produce
10,000*80/50 = 16000
units in the same facility without investments and with the same manning as before.
Can the increased capacity be used to increase sales?
One important question is if there is a market for expansion. If so, the increased capacity may be used for increased sales. It is common that the company's market share might grow after implementing TPM or Lean Production. This is possible as improved delivery accuracy and shorter lead times make more sales possible even if the market is stagnant.
If expansion is not considered possible, the increased capacity may instead be used to lower the production costs. This is possible through
- less overtime
- fewer shifts
- fewer parallel production lines maintained and operated
The direct labor costs for production will therefore decrease as the OEE-ratio increases.
Your present and future OEE-ratio
Do you know your plant's present OEE-ratio? If so, is it accurately calculated? Often we see that some downtimes are deducted when OEE is calculated. This might be stops for planned maintenance, set-up times, and lack of personnel. The end result will be an OEE-ratio that looks better than reality.
If you do not know your present OEE-ratio, the easiest way to determine it is to use the free OEE - calculator at http://wcm.nu
Then estimate what you consider a possible OEE-ratio after improvements. World Class companies reach 80-95% OEE, what is a realistic level for you?
Use the present and future OEE to calculate the future benefits. If you don't want to do the calculations by hand, try instead the free TPM and Lean - calculator at http://wcm.nu
Et voilĂ ! You have your Return on Investment calculation to present to your stake-holders!
About the Author: Oskar Olofsson is Management Consultant with more than 10 year experience from TPM and Lean Production projects in Sweden. Mr. Olofsson runs http://wcm.nu , a free resource for TPM and Lean Production implementation
Source: www.isnare.com
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