What is lean manufacturing?
Design for lean manufacturing
Design for lean manufacturing is based on the premise that product and process design is an ongoing activity and not a one-time activity; therefore design for lean manufacturing should be viewed as a long term strategy for an organization. Design for lean manufacturing must be sustainable and holistic unlike other lean manufacturing or Six Sigma approaches that either tackle only a part of the problem or tackle the problem for a short period of time. Design for lean manufacturing also relates to system thinking as it considers all aspects (or the full circle) and takes the system conditions into consideration when designing products and services, delivering them according to customer needs. ® (Munro & Associates) drives prevention of waste by adopting a systematic process to improve the design phase during development. An organizational focus is required for the implementation of Lean Design ® principles, which includes efficient and sustainable design team. Initial studies of the Japanese approach to design for lean manufacturing noted four principles; leadership of projects by a shusa (or project boss), tightly knit teams, communication on all of the difficult design trade-offs, and simultaneous development between engineering and manufacturing. Further study showed additional depth to the principles, citing 13 principles specific to the Toyota design for lean manufacturing methods in product and process development in the areas of process, skilled people, and tools and technology. As the practice of design for lean manufacturing has expanded in its depth and breadth of application, additional principles have been integrated into the method.To be successful, a corporate wide design for lean manufacturing implementation typically includes the following dimensions:
Lean construction
In the UK, a major R&D project, "Building Down Barriers", was launched in 1997 to adapt the Toyota Production System for use in the construction sector. The resulting supply chain management toolset was tested and refined on two pilot projects and the comprehensive and detailed process-based toolset was published in 2000 as the 'Building Down Barriers Handbook of Supply Chain Management-The Essentials'. The project demonstrated very clearly that lean thinking would only deliver major performance improvements if the construction sector learned from the extensive experience of other business sectors. Lean thinking must become the way that all the firms in the design and construction supply chain co-operate with each other at a strategic level that over-arches individual projects. In the aerospace sector, these long-term supply-side relationships are called a 'Virtual Company', in other business sectors they are called an 'Extended Lean Enterprise'.