Benefits of Lean Manufacturing: To benefit from Lean Manufacturing, the processes must be maintained consistently and correctly. Everyone involved must be educated and committed to the system. Benefits are typically lower costs, higher quality, and short lead time.

The seven key wastes which are attacked in Lean thinking derive from the original seven wastes defined in the Toyota Production System. These seven sources of waste are: Transportation (moving products that is not actually required to perform the processing) Inventory (all components, work-in-progress and finished product not being processed) Motion (people or equipment moving or walking more than is required to perform the processing) Waiting (waiting for the next production step) Overproduction (production ahead of demand) Over Processing (due to poor tool or product design creating activity) Defects (the effort involved in inspecting for and fixing defects) [2] Safety 6S

Various Tools of Lean Manufacturing: Five S’s: sort, simplify, sweep, standardize, and sustain Just In Time Inventory/ Kanban: Producing and delivering the correct items at the correct time and in the correct amounts. Kaizen: Continuous improvements Jidoka: As a quality assurance measure, using mechanics which will stop production when a malfunction occurs. Various Concepts of Lean Manufacturing: Single-piece production: A situation in which products proceed, one complete product at a time, through various operations in design, order-taking, and production without interruptions, back flows, or scrap. Batch & Queue: The mass production practice of making large lots of a part and then sending the batch to wait in the queue before the next operation in the production process. Production Improvement: Individual employees seek ways to do things better Cycle Time: The time it takes to complete one cycle of an operation. If cycle time can be reduced to Takt-time, products can be made in Single Piece Flow Cells: layout of machines of different types performing different operations in a tight sequence, typically in a U-shape, to permit single-piece flow and flexible deployment of human effort by means of Multi-Machine working. Elimination of Waste: Examples of waste can be overproduction, inventory, transportation, processing, scrap, motion and waiting. Five Why’s: Taiichi Ohno’s practice of asking “why” five times whenever a problem occurs in order to identify the root-cause of the problem so effective countermeasures can be developed and implemented. Takt-time: The accessible production time divided by the rate of customer demand. For example, if the customer ordered 250 widgets and there were 500 minutes of production operation, it would take 2 minutes to produce each widget. Visual control: The placement of everything visual, such as signs, charts, and tools, all positioned in clear view where everyone can observe the status of the system just by glancing.

Why JIT? In Kaizen, JIT is a is a collection of concepts and techniques for improving productivity.Kaizen JIT is a process aimed at increasing value-added and eliminating waste by providing the environment to perfect and simplify the processes. What is JIT? Just-in-time manufacturing means producing the necessary items in necessary quantities at the necessary time. It is a philosophy of continuous improvement in which non-value-adding activities (or wastes) are identified and removed. Putting this concept into practice means a reversal of the traditional thinking process. In conventional production processes, units are transported to the next production stage as soon as they are ready. In JIT, each stage is required to go back to the previous stage to pick up the exact number of units needed. Benefits: Reduced operating costs Greater performance and throughput Higher quality Improved delivery Increased flexibility and innovativeness JIT Components: Production Leveling Pull System Kamban (label or signboard) system Good Housekeeping Small Lot Production Setup Time Reduction Total Preventive Maintenance (TPM) Total Quality ControlTotal Quality Control (TQC) JIT Purchasing Line Balancing Flexible Manufacturing Small-group Activities (SGA) Kamban - a Communication Tool in JIT Production System Being a very important tool for just-in-time production, kamban has become synonymous with the JIT production system. Kamban, meaning label or signboard, is used as a communication tool in JIT system. A kamban is attached to each box of parts as they go to the assembly line. A worker from the following process goes to collect parts from the previous process leaving a kamban signifying the delivery of a given quantity of specific parts. Having all the parts funneled to the line and used as required, the same kamban is returned back to serve as both a record of work done and an order for new parts. Thus kamban coordinates the inflow of parts and components to the assembly line, minimizing the processes.

The primary difference between Lean and the TPS is the focus of efforts. In Lean thinking, the focus is on the set of tools used to assist in the identification and steady elimination of waste. These tools include Value Stream Mapping, Five S, Kanban (pull systems), and Poka Yoke (error proofing), among others. Conversely, in the Toyota Production System, the focus is on maintaining smooth flow of parts through the system. The idea is that a more smooth flow reduces the amount of time parts spend waiting in the system as well as the time machines spend waiting for parts to work on. This in turn reduces waste. The tools used in both ideologies are very similar and a great many of them overlap. TPS Toyota Production System Lean Manufacturing