Lean Thinking

Today , many companies are looking for the best result in their processes and reach a sustainable profit but good wishes are not sufficient, when there are many evidences that demonstrate inefficiency in our work, this is the first sign to evaluate the performance of the companie  and make decisions to eliminate the root cause of the nonconformity and improve the processes.

According to "Lean thinking" is imperative to identify seven sources of waste, firstly I will speak about Toyota's Philosophy, in my opinion is a good sample that prove high technology is not necessary to achieve the goals of the company. 

Toyota established an innovative way to manage the resources, aligned to demand. Mass Production was the typical conception in many companies , the preferences of the customer were not considered because they wanted to reduce their costs.
Opossite to this thinking , listen to the voice of the customer is considered a big opportunity for Toyota , and this is the reason to create a new organization structure to allow a continuous flow of the processes.

The columns that sustain the Lean thinking are:

 

Just in time: Ensure a continuous flow of the process, it means to establish a pull system.
Kanban is a good sample of this philosophy.

Visibility: In other words , make visible the problems , stop and notify.
Andon is a tool to alert the occurrences of the process.

The base that sustain those two columns is the Stability:

Stability:  Standarize work.
Imply to elaborate procedures  where describe with details the activities or functions to accomplish by people and departments of the organization

The goal is to reduce the waste of the process.

Eliminate the waste is very important to allow a continuous flow, therefore we should identify which are the different types of waste that may be in the process.

Overproduction

To produce in greater quantities than what customers demand.

Some companies choose the mass production to save costs  however if the organization does not consider the level of demand , the reduction of incomes is inevitable,  because the maintenance of the inventory for a long time has a high cost.

Transportation

Unnecesary movements of materials or people between the processes , generate waste of time and costs.

The Process Strategy must be clear . The Manager should  establish the best way to transport of materials  and design the layout of  the process.

Rework

Correction of the process is synonimous of a bad job.

As a result the company decides to create an inspection department who verify the product accomplishes the specifications. In other words a step of the process that does not add value.

Over-processing

To produce a service or product beyond the customer requirement.

An example of this waste:

The processing time to serve a customer in a bank is too longer.

Motion

Unnecesary movements of people or parts within a process

It's very important to economize the movements to achieve an efficient process , in other words obtaining goods in low time.





Inventory

Number of flow units into the process.

I suggest to reduce the number of assets because those are a cost for the company. (Maintenance, Obsolescense, Security)

It's better to manage a low level of inventory until the company achieves a level equal to zero.

Many times can be an ideal situation but in the practice Japanese companies like Toyota , they have demonstrated that is possible to reach this goal when the supply chain coordinates  with their partners in an efective way.

Waiting

Underutilizing people or parts while a process completes a work cycle.

An activity can become a bottleneck when the number of people or parts  exceed the capacity of the process.







Eliminate those sources of waste will allow to have a continuons flow within a process.