Lean Thinking, Principles, Methodology and Tools

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Lean Methodology
The thought process of Lean was thoroughly described in The Machine that changed the
World by James P. Womack, Daniel Roos, and Daniel T. Jones in 1990.
The fundamental objective of Lean is to create flow, for both materials and information,
and maximize value through the reduction or elimination of non-value added activities.
Instead of a diet, Lean should be thought of as a long-term health program for your business.
Consider it a way to add energy and vitality to your organization.
Organizations that re-think their end-to-end value chains and find ways to provide what their
Customers value better, faster and with significantly fewer resources than their competitors
can obviously develop an unassailable competitive advantage.
The continued success of Lean thinking, principles and methods over the last two
decades, makes Lean, together with Six Sigma, one of the main building blocks of
every Operational Excellence initiative.
In Lean Thinking, published in 2003, James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones introduced the five fundamental Lean Principles.
1. Define Value in the Eye of the Customer Thoroughly understand what the Customer values. Create products and processes that more than
satisfy Customers needs. Develop methods for identifying & measuring Customer Value. Fulfilling Customer needs supersedes everything except
safety.
2. Working in Value Stream Identify the end-to-end value stream for each product or service. - Organize processes around value streams. Challenge all of the business-value adding and non-value adding (wastes) steps currently necessary to create and deliver each product or service. Add nothing than value.
3. Create Material, Information & Cash Flow Eliminate obstacles to flow: over-production, inventory, over-processing, waiting, transportation,
defects, and motion. - Make the product or service creation and delivery process flow through the remaining value-added steps.
4. Establish Demand-Driven Pull Introduce pull between all process steps where continuous flow is possible. Every step moves at the rate of
the Customer needs: the takt time. All flow comes at the direct pull of the Customer.
5. Pursuit Perfection Deploy Lean as a long-term business strategy, not a tactical cost-reduction initiative. Use a scientific method for problem
solving and improvement. - Manage toward perfection, but dont do everything at once. Establish a culture of small rapid improvements and
longer-term initiatives.
The most common way to describe the difference between value added and non-value added activities is by using the "Concept of the
Seven Wastes". Taiichi Ohno, the mastermind behind the Toyota Production System (TPS), identified seven common types of waste or non-value
added activities - Over-Production, Inventory, Over-Processing, Waiting, Transportation, Defects, and Motion. These wastes are applicable
to any process in an organization.
Over-Production Waste: Simply put, over-production is to
manufacture an item before it is actually required. Over-production
is highly costly to a manufacturing plant because it prohibits the
smooth flow of materials and actually degrades quality and
productivity. This results in high storage costs and makes it difficult
to detect defects in a timely manner.
Inventory Waste: Work-in-Process (WIP) is a direct result of
over-production and waiting. Excess inventory tends to hide
problems on the plant floor, which must be identified and resolved
in order to improve operating performance. Excess inventory
consumes productive floor space, delays the identification of

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Lean Thinking, Principles, Methodology and Tools

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problems, and inhibits communication. By achieving a seamless

flow between work centers, many manufacturers have been able
to improve Customer service and slash inventories and their
associated costs.
Over-Processing Waste: Many organizations use expensive high precision equipment where simpler tools would be sufficient. This often results in
poor plant layout because preceding or subsequent operations are located far apart. In addition they encourage high asset utilization (overproduction with minimal changeovers) in order to recover the high cost of this equipment.
Waiting Waste: Typically more than 99% of a product's life in traditional batch-and-queue manufacture will be spent waiting to be processed. Much
of a products lead time is tied up in waiting for the next operation; this is usually because material flow is poor, production runs are too long, and
distances between work centers are too great.
Transportation Waste: Transporting product between processes is a cost incursion which adds no value to the product. Excessive movement and
handling cause damage and are an opportunity for quality to deteriorate. Material handlers must be used to transport the materials, resulting in
another organizational cost that adds no Customer value.
Defects Waste: Having a direct impact to the bottom line, quality defects resulting in rework or scrap are a tremendous cost to organizations.
Associated costs include quarantining inventory, re-inspecting, rescheduling, and capacity loss.
Motion Waste: This waste is related to ergonomics and is seen in all instances of bending, stretching, walking, lifting, and reaching. These are also
health and safety issues, which in todays litigious society are becoming more of a problem for organizations. Jobs with excessive motion should be
analyzed and redesigned for improvement with the involvement of plant personnel.
In order to design processes and work flows according to the five Lean Principles, Lean
utilizes a variety of methods and tools.
These include 5S Visual Workplace, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Standard or
Standardized Work, Mistake- or Error-Proofing, and Total Productive Maintenance
(TPM), as well as Load Balancing, Pull & Kanban Systems, Supermarkets, Work Cells,
and Rapid or Quick Changeover (SMED).
Operational Excellence Consulting offers customized Lean training courses, including
"Introduction to Lean Principles, Methods and Tools", 5S Visual Workplace "Value
Stream Mapping (VSM)", "Lean Standard Work", and Total Productive Maintenance.
We recommend the deployment of Lean or Lean Six Sigma through an integrated and strategically aligned initiative rather than a series of
isolated Kaizen Events or other improvement efforts. However, a sequential deployment of successive Lean or Lean Six Sigma tools and methods is
required to build organizational competence to ensure the initiative will be effective over time.
An initial Operational Excellence assessment will provide a thorough understanding of an organization's opportunities and thus provide a good
foundation for the development of a Lean or Lean Six Sigma deployment plan.
To learn more about our Operational Excellence Lean Solutions, please review our Workshop Catalog and visit our OpEx eStore for
downloadable Training Material and eLearning Solutions, as well as Webinars and Workshops.
Contact Us to discuss how Operational Excellence Consulting can support you and your organization in establishing or accelerating your
own Operational Excellence initiative.
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