© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Financial benefits of lean improvement Lean planning

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. The problem If Lean Manufacturing is so great – how come we can’t see any financial benefit? When Lean Manufacturing is introduced, the executives of the company expect to see tangible financial improvement. Often there is no short-term improvement and sometimes the opposite. The financial reports may show negative results and the finance people have no other methods for assessing the financial impact of lean manufacturing.

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Traditional financial results are designed to show how money was spent but not how well it was spent. Lean manufacturing frees up large amounts of resource capacity but this is not shown in the financial reports. The traditional accounting reports assume that this capacity was required to produce the current period’s production. The reason

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. In general, lean manufacturing and lean enterprise are not strategies for short-term cost reduction and bottom-line improvement. Lean is a longer term strategy of business process improvement through value streams……. Leading to enormous financial benefit through growth. Lean is not a cost reduction strategy

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Available Capacity Sell more stuff Strategicall y Re-deploy resources Eliminate resources Freed up cash Profit & loss Report Cash flow Report Use of Available Cash The financial benefits of lean depend on how available capacity is used

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Analyzing the capacity Productive capacity Value added activities Provides value to the customer Comes directly from customer pull Non-productive capacity Non-value-added activities Change-overs, unplanned maintenance, making for stock, defects/rework, etc. Available capacity Capacity that is not currently being use for productive or non- productive activities.

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Important questions When should these financial benefits be calculated? Prior to embarking on the Lean Manufacturing implementation or project. After the Current and Future State maps are available. Who should see these numbers and make decisions about the use of the freed up resources and cash? Management & value stream managers Let’s look at the example of Acme Stamping

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Example of financial benefits Acme Stamping Makes brackets for the auto industry Implemented lean manufacturing Reduce lead time for 24 days to 4½ days Reduce inventory from 10 turns to 55 turns

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. What bridges the gap between the operational and financial results? Why have we seen improved operations and no financial improvement? What has changed? The effect of lean improvements: Acme Stamping – future state Lean improvements have freed up capacity. Revenue and costs are still the same.

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This begs the question … What are we going to do with these freed up resources? Or, put it another way

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Turn the question around….. When asked about the savings of the lean improvement projects and kaizens, “What is the strategy for using the capacity freed up by lean changes?” To make lean improvement highly profitable you must have a plan for using the newly freed up capacity. You must also focus on the longer term.

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Floor space used Acme Stamping Floor space in Current State12,000 sq.ft. Floor space in Future State 5,753 sq.ft. Cost per Square Foot = $1.00 Savings$6,247 per month What are we going to do with these freed up resources?

© BMA Inc All rights reserved. Inventory reduction The future state has freed up over $1M of cash.

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What did Acme Stamping do? Using their Value Stream Capacity Analysis information, Acme developed a plan to increase the revenue of the value stream through the judicious use of the newly available capacity. Specific changes: Added a new product for James Hinde Company. Brought in stamping work for a sister division. Leased floor space to a sub-contractor. Trained additional “lean champions”.

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Long term future state for Acme Stamping

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What is the expense of these increased sales? Used existing machine capacity freed up by the lean improvements. No cost. Use existing people; no additional hires. No cost Used floor space freed up by lean improvements. No cost Product design funded by freed up cash from inventory reduction.

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Box score: Acme Stamping Pulling it all together

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Use the Box Score to Show the Benefits Value Stream Box Score prior to additional people & machines

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Box Score: Result of the Planned Action Value Stream Box Score with new equipment and people

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Summary: Calculating financial benefits Lean improvement projects eliminate waste and create available capacity. Inventory reduction creates available cash. The financial impact of lean improvements are determined by how these available resources are used. In most cases the financial benefits of using these resources do not come in the short term.