Lean Manufacturing - Business Process Improvement

Lean Manufacturing / Enterprise

Every company should make it a way of life!

Lean philosophy is a way of life that all companies, manufacturing and service should be trying to implement into their organisations.

Regardless of size or industry you should use the following philosophy to improve your business

•   The identification and elimination of waste
•   Identify and improve the flow of all processes
•   Train all staff to identify and remove staff

Waste is anything, which doesn't add value to the product or service that is to say nothing that the customer will not pay for. For example the customer doesn't pay for you to build up loads of work in process, or to move product round and round your factory or for you to waste time looking for parts or tools. These are examples of waste, which should be eliminated from all processes. The 7 wastes explain waste in more detail.

Typically when you start to remove waste in processes you use a variety of management tools, techniques and processes including

TPM	SMED	5S
Kaizen	Kanban	Cellular Manufacturing
JIT	SCM	MRPII
mrp	Takt Time	Standardised work
Visual Management	Six Sigma	Facilitation
Problem Solving tools	DOE	Pokie Yokie
QFD	DFMA	Process Mapping

Lean should be applied through out your business and with suppliers and customers to ensure that your processes are effective and efficient. The term lean was coined by Dan Jones in the 1990's and has at its core the Toyota Production System. SBP have developed a very practical and effective approach to applying lean to organisations all over the world. They have incorporated Kaizen and six sigma as well as production planning and control techniques.