Lean Production - Process of streamlining operations and processes to reduce all forms of waste and to achieve greater efficiency. Waste is defined as any activity that does not add value from the customer’s perspective, the removal of which will allow the business to maximise efficiency while cutting the costs of production.
Identify Value - Define what customers value and how products can be designed to meet the needs of customers, while removing features that do not specifically meet those needs. By identifying what gives a product its value, the business can focus its efforts on maximising value added.
Map the Value Stream - Identify and remove all operations, processes, and steps in the supply chain that do not add value to the brand or product. By reducing and removing unnecessary processes or steps, the business ensures that the value of the product is maximised while reducing the costs of production.
Create Flow - Strategically organise the work floor so that production flows seamlessly from one unit to the next without interruptions or delays. Some strategies for ensuring that value-adding activities flow smoothly include: using a Kanban system, creating cross-functional departments, and training employees to be multi-skilled and adaptive.
Establish Pull - A pull-based production system originates from the ‘pull’ of the demand from the market, in order to streamline operations to produce only what is necessary. It limits inventory and work-in-process items, only making requisite materials available in order to eliminate and avoid waste. Systems such as Just-in-Time adopt the pull-based approach.
Seek Perfection - Always strive to improve the quality and efficiency of operations and productions using philosophies such as Kaizen to establish a culture of continuous improvement.
Kaizen focuses on perfecting processes through continuous incremental improvement by eliminating waste. A business adopting the principle of kaizen is expected to encourage workers and managers to constantly find and suggest small and continuous ways to improve work processes and efficiency.
Usually small groups of employees are gathered to identify potential changes to improve the organisation’s products, processes and procedures. The aim is to establish a steady flow of small improvements rather than one-off and/or radical changes.
A key philosophy of kaizen is that everyone in the organisation is integral to quality management, and that anyone, regardless of their rank or position, can make a contribution to improve the operations of the organisation.
Just-in-Time inventory system is designed to improve efficiency and reduce waste in the production process by receiving production inputs only as and when they are required in the production process. Ideally, a just-in-time system would eliminate the need for a stock control system as buffer stocks are not required, thereby cutting out the cost of storage to hold inventory.
JIT manufacturing puts the business in a vulnerable position to potential disruptions in the supply chain. For JIT manufacturing to succeed, the business must have reliable suppliers that deliver production input on time and up to the business’ quality standard. If a supplier cannot deliver the goods on time, there could be a stall in the entire production process for the business.
Kanban is a visual tool used to monitor and mage workflow by attaching a card to each unit of production that indicates its status in the production process. A Kanban board displays which tasks have been completed, which tasks are works in progress, and which tasks have yet to be sorted.
A kanban board ensures production flows at a steady pace by identifying the priority tasks to accomplish before more workload is taken on. Limiting works-in-progress will reduce multitasking and distractions, keeping employees focused on one thing at a time to improve their productivity and efficiency at the task.
Andon is a visual control system used to indicate the status of an aspect of the production process. An audible sound system is used in coordination to create a visual-audio notification system in order to alert workers to manufacturing processes that require attention. Andon invites all employees to take action when issues and problems arise in the production process, and empowers them to stop the entire production to address the problem immediately.
Andons are typically colour-coded as below:
Cradle to Cradle (C2C) - A sustainable model of product design and manufacturing intended to follow a closed loop system in which all output travels through a continuous cycle of use and reuse. C2C aims to eliminate all waste and ensure the business is sustainable.
Quality Control - Traditional way of quality management that involves inspecting, testing and sampling the quality of work. Throughout the production process, output is checked to match required specifications, to detect faults or poor quality.
Quality Assurance - Management process of guaranteeing the consumer of a product’s quality by ensuring that all processes and operations were held to high quality standards. Quality assurance requires employees to be trained in conducting personal checks to detect anomalies in quality in their own work.
Quality Circles - A small team of employees who meet regularly to examine whether the output of each unit of production is up to standard. Quality circles encourage communication and teamwork among all employees involved in order to solve problems and identify potential improvements.
Benchmarking - Comparing business performance, in terms of its products, operations, and processes, with others in the same industry. The purpose is to allow the business to emulate the best practices in order to improve its own operational efficiency, while at the same time reducing the performance gap with its rivals.
Total Quality Management - Process that requires the dedication of everyone in the organisation to commit to achieving quality standards. It places quality as the core focus in all functional areas, and empowers employees to take corrective measures if the quality of their output is not up to standard. If successful, TQM will eliminate waste and identify and solve mistakes at their source before they become a problem.