One of the most talked about methods of improving the efficiency of production in any company are the so called lean techniques. This term has been around from the 90’s but it’s origins can be traced back to a generic process management philosophy applied at the Toyota company which helped it evolve from a relatively small company to the biggest automaker in the world. It may sound like magic but it is actually a very basic concept: improving the efficiency of production by eliminating all waste. Waste in the lean techniques paradigm is considered any resource used or any step taken that doesn’t create value for the end consumer.

So, the basic goal of Lean is eliminating waste, and although this sounds simple enough it isn’t easy to identify every process that is wasteful. What Lean does is to analyze the production line, and opposed to just implementing uncritically the ideas that seem to make sense in reducing waste it focuses on determining empirically what works and what doesn’t.

The company that used for the first time Lean techniques, Toyota, had developed three main steps that should preserve the value of the end product with less work necessary. Thus three types of waste were established by the Japanese company: muri, mura and muda. Muri is considered to be the planning and preparation of the processes that will take place in the production line. Mura is considered to be all the unreasonable work that is imposed by the management on the employees or machines, such as carrying heavy things, or working in dangerous conditions, or even at a faster rate than normal. These fluctuations can disrupt the normal way the production is done, and most of the times will lead to less quality work. Muda is the analysis of the way the production is done after every cycle, and it focuses on the causes of production variation. The results that can be observed in the mura and muda stages should be taken into consideration and implemented in muri. Thus thru this constant analysis after a number of cycles the production should be streamlined almost to perfection. But here intervenes another concept of Lean techniques which is that there is always room for improvement, and it should be the role of the leadership of the company to focus on these improvements.  

The original seven muda that have been discovered in the Toyota Company are:

§  Transport. This is actually a very common type of waste in most companies. It is based on the fact that in many cases products are being moved even though they are not actually required for the production process. This also can be a result of improper spaces for the work that is required. If the space for the production is too small or badly proportioned than things will have to be moved around to have enough room for specific processes, therefore time is wasted.

§  Inventory. During the inventory process none of the components or finished products are actually being processed. Thus, for a more streamlined production, the inventory process should be very fast or if possible eliminated altogether.

§  Motion. This is common problem that derives again from badly structured working spaces and is based on the fact that people or equipment have to walk or be moved respectively more than is required to perform the processing

§  Waiting. This is the result of badly organized work. Processes should be finished in an exact time frame so that the next step will be done without waiting for the previous one to be done.

§  Overproduction. Production should begin only when there is a demand on the market. Overproduction leads only to waste.

§  Over Processing. This is the result of using tools that are outdated or unsuited for that specific task, and the result is that more time is wasted on a specific step of production than it could be if the correct tools were used.

§  Defects. Fixing and identifying defects is one of the key priorities of the muda process.

All these types of waste make for bad efficiency of production. The best companies in the world use Lean techniques on a regular basis, and they are one of the key ingredients for their success. Although the concept seems simple enough, eliminating any kind of wastes such as those described above, lean techniques are pretty hard to implement, because it takes a lot of experience to identify the problems.  Thus a manager that has been trained in this specific field of Lean techniques can be a very important asset in an upcoming company bent on becoming the best. Of course just a good implementation of Lean techniques isn’t enough to ensure success but it is a very important factor.

Incoming search terms:

• can the implementation of lean disrupt normal production
• identify and discuss three lean techniques ?
• the original seven muda
• three broad types of waste in japanese term

No related posts.