LEAN MANUFACTURING

Change for your own business growth. There is no doubt that lean thinking is driving massive changes in manufacturing processes worldwide. It lies at the heart of measurable improvements in quality, reliability and performance. What lean is not, however, is a magic formula that solves manufacturing issues in one easy application. Businesses that announce they are ‘going lean’ are missing the point. Lean principles work best when they are applied in pursuit of specific business goals rather than grand, general initiatives. In other words, use them first to tackle the main problems that stop your company getting where it wants to be. The truth of this is underlined by the work of a producer of gas turbines and generation packages. Part of a famous international engineering group, its products were excellent, its workforce skilled, and it had recently had good capital investment. So where was the problem? Quite simply, the company was risking missing out on a huge market opportunity unless it could shorten its lead times and increase throughput and productivity fast. Within the next 25 years, it is expected that the volume of new equipment installed will equal today’s entire installed capacity. The company needed a new way of manufacturing to meet its goal – a large share of an expanding market. Facing the issues The company was realistic about its current situation: its processes and performance were variable and unpredictable. It wasn’t getting the volumes it wanted nor realizing the potential of its existing capacity. There was also little visibility of information at both shopfloor and at management level. Lead times were measured in double digit months; its target was the same number in weeks. It was also carrying far too much work in progress (WIP) with idle inventory stacked up behind bottlenecks across the shopfloor. Clearly, this […]

In recent conversations with manufacturing and service industry leaders, lean managers discussed problems they face as they work to advance operational excellence in their organizations. The sticky issues will likely come as no surprise; they include ones most of us are already aware of and have encountered for years:  Lack of real engagement with top leadership Difficulty sustaining a process focus. No consistent systems for developing talent from within. As one lean manager put it: “The main problems are internal in nature; for example, real engagement of the top levels of the organisation to support and realise the value of operational excellence; and the adoption of process thinking and structured problem solving as opposed to traditional functional approaches and cost-cutting.” Ironically, these same issues are key requirements for sustaining lean initiatives, but they were raised by managers in the context of a question about problems they encounter that fall outside the scope of their lean or operational excellence initiatives. Moreover, process focus and development of internal talent are elements that the initiative itself should be designed to address. Here are several pragmatic approaches lean leaders can follow to counteract these problems, working within the purview and scope of their improvement efforts: Re-Examine the values behind your lean efforts Typical rationales driving operational excellence initiatives include things like cost reduction, improving efficiency and effectiveness, and even propelling growth. You might figure thatÕs just obvious. Yet the impetus for your initiative can have a telling effect on the outcomes you achieve over the long term. ItÕs not a bad idea to dig a bit deeper and re-examine the big ideas that are driving you forward. Technical improvements and results can be powerful, but the ability to sustain comes from the social or cultural changes in the organization, which don’t happen quickly. While […]