Use Lean to take the waste away

It is still a little surprising to me when I read about companies just discovering the benefits of Lean Manufacturing. The concept has been around for quite some time (it was originally termed "Lean" by the LEI in the late 1980s) and it is even permeating into other sectors such a Health, Finance and Administration. In fact, any business that has a process of some sort (every business?) can benefit from Lean.

In brief, Lean is the reduction of waste in all its forms. And while the traditional Seven Wastes has been expanded to include Eight or Nine Wastes, Lean essentially aims to reduce the following wastes:  

1. Over production
2. Waiting
3. Transportation
4. Inventory
5. Motion
6. Over processing
7. Defective Units

Click here for more details about what these mean and how they negatively affect your business.

Two important things to remember here. Where Lean Manufacturing fails is when companies have approached it as a one-off event - it should be treated as a continuous improvement program and there are tools you can use to ensure Lean is implementable and sustainable in your organisation. Second, it's success should be measured as a cultural change above all else. It is fine to see productivity rise and that's ultimately what everyone wants, but when staff buy into the Lean mentality and it is part of the culture, you know you have been successful and will be in the long term.

The Lean tools I mentioned before are outlined in our ProEdge Manufacturing Excellence program, which has been scheduled for this year - the next one is in Mackay, Queensland on 19th February.

Lean Manufacturing gets results too. Read some of our recent success stories of companies that have implemented Lean well (click on the business name to read the full case study):

Austchrome:

• reduced job turnaround times from 30 to 17 days
• increased production volume by 50%

Before and after Lean at Austchrome

Townsville Pallet and Crate:

• 100% delivery in full, on time

Brisbane Tray Bodys:

• increased productivity by 100%
• increased productivity wins mining client

There is a whole new blog topic where you can relate the principles of Lean to those espoused by sustainability advocates, but for now, just know that Lean works, it's scalable and your competitors are probably already doing it.

ABP AllBoards kickstart change

QMI Solutions provided an essential “outsiders’ perspective” for family-run ABP Allboards that helped  the company kick start change.

 

The manufacturer has so far identified $120,000 in possible savings by reducing inventory costs and the potential to save $150,000 a year in rent by rearranging the factory layout or using smaller premises. Here's some compelling pics of some of the changes ABP have made to their factory layout:

 

ABP AllBoards factory before

ABP AllBoards factory after

Click here to read the full article.

 

 

Measuring What Manufacturers Measure

Another good post from NGM Update:

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A study of 322 manufacturers (US and abroad) by the MPI Group, identifies what operational measures manufacturers are good at, and what they are not so good at. Here is a summary:

Good = inventory, quality, safety, OEE, productivity, and supplier performance.
Bad = process sustainability, in-plant material handling, external logistics and distribution

What I describe as "bad" is actually those areas that 15-17% of respondents rated themselves as having "No Capability" in the study. Is this accurate - What do you think?

Click here to read the full article.

Reinventing Manufacturing - Germany’s Fulfilling Future

An article from Pierfrancesco Manenti posted on Manufacturing Executive details how Germany (The China of Europe) emerged from recession more robust thanks to progressive manufacturing policies such as increased labour flexibility and an overall focus on manufacturing as a base for competitive advantage. Significantly, as operations efficiency and customer fulfillment increasingly dominate the German manufacturing agenda, sourcing from lower-cost countries is ranked as less important.


Click here to read the full article.

Better process means better innovation

This excerpt is part of a larger post by Dr Tim Kastelle from UQ.

It is from Chess Champion Gary Kasparov commenting on the winners from a 2005 Chess tournament which allowed human and computers to enter as hybrid teams. The winners were amateur players using modest equipment with a superior process. He said:

"Weak human + machine + better process was superior to a strong computer alone and, more remarkably, superior to a strong human + machine + inferior process."

Click here to read the full article.