Process Manufacturing Guide

Lean Manufacturing Process

A manufacturing process which believes in waste reduction as a way to minimize process variations is known as a Lean Manufacturing Process. Commercially employed for the first time by Toyota, Lean Manufacturing practices have gone on to become the backbone of manufacturing processes which intend in achieving cost effectiveness by simple focus on waste reduction in each and every step of the manufacturing process. Several tools like Kaizen which is used for continuous improvement and Poka-Yoke for mistake proofing are employed in a Lean Manufacturing Process.

Is there a different approach to a Lean Manufacturing Process?

Toyota had promoted a second approach for Lean Manufacturing practices that focuses on improving the flow of work. This flow of work is significant in reducing lead times thus enabling faster production times for the manufacturing process. Various techniques like Production Leveling and Pull-Production are used for improving the flow in manufacturing processes.

What is the difference between the flow improvement and waste reduction processes?

Significantly, both these approaches are not different in their goals. The difference is in their approaches to the goal.

While waste reduction techniques identify wastes in different stages of the manufacturing process, flow improvement process works on the quality issues of the process. The flow improvement mechanism advocates the fact that wastes in a manufacturing process arises due to quality issues observed in the stages.
Waste reduction techniques assume and associate 'waste' as a part of a process. Flow improvement techniques expose any quality problems with different stages of a manufacturing process and scientifically attribute wastes to certain/all stages of the manufacturing process.

Some Lean Manufacturing Process concepts explained..

Waste Minimization - The process of eliminating activities or tasks which do not add value to the entire manufacturing process. This allows the manufacturing process to make optimum use of limited resources.
Continuous Improvement - The process of improving quality, reducing costs, increasing productivity and sharing information between resources of the manufacturing cycle.
JIT - Also known as Just in Time Production, focuses primarily on the flow concept. The JIT advocates the fact of no inventory in a perfectly functioning production flow.
Smart Automation - An improvement over automation, machines are programmed intelligently to detect variations and flag it for attention by humans. This ensures that personnel manning these machines only have to keep on eye for the abnormal events indicators flagged by the machines thereby reducing their workloads and improving their efficiency.

Lean Manufacturing Process has gained impetus in terms of implementation on various manufacturing processes.

After all, business owners would wish an initiative which could speed up the production process without a change in quality.