Lean manufacting system is a cost reduction approach. It is the production of goods using fewer of everything in comparison to mass production. Lean manufacturing system offers less waste, less human effort, less manufacturing space, less investment in tools, and less engineering time to develop a new product. "Lean" is viewed by many as the "latest" management fad in the cost-reduction arena.
Contents
1.1 Pre-20th century History on the Lean system
1.2 1940's and onwards... the developement of the Lean System
1.3 Success of the Lean system
1.1 Pre-20th Century History on the Lean system
Lean manufacturing system is developed for the Toyota manufacturing system, but as well as Ford automobile manufacture who used a similar concept to manufacture t
he model T automobile.Henry Ford's idea was on continuous assembly lines, and flow systems which are important concepts and plays a huge role on the Lean System. One reason that the Ford's system did not become successful was because it eventually fell apart due to the bad system and bad attitude towards workers and the inflexibility of the system.
1.2 1940's and onwards The development of the Lean System
The manufacturing revolution began in Japan ("The toyoda family") in automobile manufacturing. During the late 1940's, Japan's industry was collapsed and the economy was badly affected due the the World War II. In addition to this, Japanese manufacturers faced many problems. They had limited resources of raw m
aterials, labour movements and they had limited capital availability. Japanese manufacturers also cannot compete with oversea markets. Therefore, japanese manufacturers produced for local markets and diversified small.Toyoda (after the Ford system fell apart) concluded that by the right sizing machines for the actual volume needed, to introduce self-monitoring machines to ensure quality, lining the machines up in process sequence, pioneering quick setups so each machine could make small volumes of many part numbers, and having each process step notify the previous step of its current needs for materials. It would be possible to obtain low costs, high variety, high quality, and very rapid times to respond to the changing customer needs. The information management could be made much simpler and more accurately.
1.3 Success of the Lean System
The Lean System principle had increases productivity of Japanese automobiles by using less materials. This system is able to specify the value desired by the customer. It is able to identify the value stream for each product providing the value and challenge all of the wasted steps currently necessary to provide it. In addition, it also makes the product flow continuously through the remaining, value-added steps. This system introduces pull between all steps where continuous flow is possible. It manages toward perfection so that the number of steps and the amount of time and information needed to serve the customer continually falls.
SEE ALSO: Cellular Manfacturing, Continuous Improvement, Process Control
Further Reading:
Cox, James F., III, and John H. Blackstone, Jr APICS Dictionary, 9th ed. Falls Church, VA: American Production and Inventory Control Society, 1998.
Hunter, Steve L. "The 10 Steps to Lean Production" FDM 76, no. 5 (2004): 22-25
Stevenson, William J. Operations Management. 8th ed. Boston: Orwin/McGraw-Hill, 2005.
Womack, James P., and Daniel T. Jones. Lean Thing: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New Your: Simon & Schuster, 1996
References:
Just in Time, Toyota Production System & Lean Manufacturing
(Origins & History Lean Manufacturing)
http://www.strategosinc.com/just_in_time.htm
History of lean manufacturing
http://www.leanmanufacturingconcepts.com/HistoryOfLeanManufacturing.htm
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