Lean Manufacturing Concepts Discussion

The why of lean thinking is driven out of competitive necessity. Conceptually, ignoring wasteful process is stealing cash from the bottom line.

Toyota really has demonstrated that currently, the old American manufacturing system is failing. Mass producing parts for the sake of making parts will ultimately lead to failure. Ask GM if lean thinking is successful? Ask Chrysler or Ford?

Toyota's business model is one of the primary case studies in how to be competitive finanically in North America anymore.

It's a good Thread & Discussion on lean will be benificial to us
Now days We had also started the Lean activity in our organisation, It will be helf ful to me.

Lean Manufacturing is essential nowadays as it reduced times, operating costs and improved product quality.

Mainly you may be able to get most of the important lean concepts via many resources. During my 3 years experience what I can see is that the below are the mostly used lean concepts;

1. Continuous improvement
2. Andon
3. KPI

Apart from that operational excellence principles are widely used in industry along with lean six sigma concepts. If you are interested in an industrial engineering related career let me know, I have valuable resources with me.

Dear Friends, I really do not know Is this the place to write this Question. As it is long long time I was very active on this Forum. It was year of 2003 - 2005 or so. After that I could not devote much time But now I promise to be here and to actively participate. Now Please try to resolve my doubt.
I wanted to have clarification between MUDA of Inventory & MUDA of Overproduction. How to measure in my shop / industry, there is Muda of Overproduction or not? Is it the Final thing (Finish Good) only which determines MUDA of Overproduction or we can fine at different stage of production, this MUDA of Overproduction. Please clarify.

I will endeavor to provide a technical answer, but this is not with the purpose of "resolving doubt". I am no proponent of "Lean". However, as an Operations Researcher, looking to provide not just feasible solutions, but optimal, here is a way of looking at this:

Inventory costs money. Generally this is seen on the input side. I buy excess materials "just in case". I am trying to balance the cost of not having something when I need it (such as ventilators for respiratory problems, PPE for COVID 19) versus the cost of storing it (who would agreed to a year ago to stock up on ventilators and PPE?). "Just In Time" is the buzzword here, and works IF you have control over your supply chain and know with near certainty what level of raw materials you need when.

Overproduction is related, and does have an Inventory storage cost. It is another "just in case" issue. I may have a quota to make 100 Ventilators a month and in fact, may only have orders to make 100. But I get the 100 done by the 3rd week of the month. Do I keep producing in the 4th week "just in case".

I chose the rather emotional topic of ventilators and medical PPE since we are asking - why weren't we "prepared" for a pandemic? But who would have foreseen AND able to justify the costs of stocking up on supplies? An issue with the MUDA's is they are seen as Black and White. To achieve optimality, the answer may be somewhere in a balance, AND unforeseen circumstances can run havoc when you don't have "just in case" extras.

All of the wastes create all of the other wastes. So, overproduction creates the waste of excess inventory. Overproduction is essentially the waste of doing things before they are needed. Consuming energy, people resources, materials which you have to buy earlier and the potential of scrap of something not needed by the Customer or expiry.

Waste exists where ever it is. There is no specific location for waste so yes you can have overproduction waste at the place it is created, in the warehouse before it’s created, in downstream areas after it’s created.
The important thing about waste is not necessarily that you categorize it ‘correctly’, it’s that you recognize it for what it is.

Remember too that the goal isn’t really to eliminate all waste, rather to reduce as far as possible that waste which inhibits the even flow of product to the Customer.

as to Steve’s provocation - which is a very common question in industry right now - there are some things for which we should have a safety stock. Some of it is rare raw materials - think about the reagents needed for the virus testing. Some of it is finished goods. The difficulty as you say is knowing which things we need and how much we need. The ‘lean’ answer doesnt’ preclude judicious safety stocks, bu tit does focus more on teh need for a flexible and responsive supply chain. Suppliers and manufacturers have eliminate a lot of waste are much faster to respond to abrupt changes in demand and disasters.

First, Thanks for intelligent replies. Still there are doubt about Targets to reduce. .. As Bev D says Target is not ELIMINATE but reduce the waste. And when we talk about Reduce, there has to be TWO Numbers e.g. Reduction of Overproduction from XXX to YYY. I have serious doubt about these XXX & YYY. Particularity in MUDA of Overproduction & MUDA of Waiting. Simply Looking measurements....

As always, simply setting a target without means to achieve the target is futile. Why do you want to measure the waste of overproduction?

I am a student from the Philippines and had the chance to be certified as a Lean six sigma Yellow Belter