Using technology to implement lean manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is more than a buzzword. It is key to improving a company’s floor performance, customer responsiveness, and, ultimately, its bottom line. Yet few manufacturers truly understand what it takes to implement the concept.

Lean manufacturing meshes today’s information technology with 1st place Toyota’s much-lauded just-in-time (JIT) approach, which has been adopted by many manufacturers. The Toyota Production System assembly line manufacturing methodology, developed in the 1950s, professed the importance of “getting the right things to the right place at the right time, the first time, while minimizing waste and being open to change” (James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos, The Machine that Changed the World: The Story of Lean Production [New York: HarperCollins, 1991]).

But lean manufacturing goes beyond JIT; it strives to reduce inventory through better communication about production processes and their inherent problems and by tapping into the knowledge of floor personnel to make them part of the solution.

Common Mistakes and Misconceptions

Today many managers talk about implementing lean manufacturing with too little knowledge about the overall concept and goal. In trying to implement the process, many U.S. manufacturers have been disappointed by inadequate results, while others have found the process too disruptive. Still others believe they are adhering to the principles of lean manufacturing but lack the control to improve the process and therefore may actually be costing themselves more money in the long run.

Moving Toward Lean

What can companies do to move successfully toward lean manufacturing? One of the obvious but often overlooked tools is information from an electronic floor system. A floor information system can help manufacturers move forward with lean concepts of identifying problems, following the flow of parts, and measuring changeover times.

With information systems, factory floor processes and part flow, sometimes referred to as a “current state map,” are visibly tracked through production. The process flow is visible and available all day to all employees. Improvement becomes a continuous, ongoing goal for both management and floor workers.

Lean Manufacturing Software

To truly contribute to lean manufacturing, floor information systems should provide the following:

1. Accessibility. All floor employees have access to the system and are empowered to identify problem situations.
2. A JIT approach. A just-in-time production approach is dynamic and reactive to customer and floor demands.
3. Tracking. Changeover times can be tracked to specific assets and employees.
4. Process improvement. Opportunities for process improvement are identified and recorded.
5. Communication. Floor personnel have access to communications such as e-mail when appropriate.
6. Data. Operators can access data through electronic, paperless display of electronic image and video documents.
7. Quality checks. Quality checks are captured electronically in real time so that employees can be alerted to nonconformance conditions.

Creative Thinking

If companies want to have leaner production processes, they need to make sure they evaluate all the alternatives. It is important for managers to think creatively and use the information tools creatively.

Top-level executives can be instrumental in creating a culture for continuous improvement. Empowering all floor workers, managers, and executives to use information provided by lean manufacturing software, implement creative problem-solving, and share in the success of meeting greater production goals is the key to the success of lean manufacturing today.

Reprinted with permission from THE FABRICATOR May 2003. © The Croydon Group, Ltd. All rights reserved. Visit the web site at www.thefabricator.com. Foste Reprints: 866-879-9144

FACTIVITY has been implementing manufacturing and business systems using its lean manufacturing software for more than 15 years.