It Is The Idea Of Continual Improvement That Drives Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is not a new concept. In fact, its] been practiced and nearly perfected over the last 100 years. It began in the early days of manufacturing when businesses were aiming to figure out how to build more parts faster and cheaper and with less waste. It eventually found its way into the form of an assembly line and worked its way into post war Japan and back to the USA in recent decades. It's never perfect, however striving to get better is the primary goal.

This idea of continual improvement is what drives lean manufacturing forward. You have to be capable to look at the entire process from start to finish and decide what is going to be able to be improved and what will not be cost effective to improve. Some things have to be done and there is only one way to do it and it just can’t be improved upon. There are also things that you need to do, such as office work and duties that are not directly related to adding value to your product, nevertheless they still need to be performed.

These things shouldn't be ignored, but they should be grouped separately and ideas for these non-manufacturing processes should be looked at. They will just have to be conducted differently and by different workers. The processes that add direct value to your product and therefore your customer are the most important things at the moment.

These processes, from start to finish make up the production of your product. They include ordering the parts needed or manufacturing your own parts and not building everything until it's ready to leave your facility and into your customers hands. Surely there are things that you could point out right now that aren’t really efficient. There are probably ten ideas in every persons head on the floor to correct the obstacles.

Nevertheless, you have to be willing to locate and recognize these problems and be willing to resolve them to the best of your effort. There are a lot of ways to go about identifying the problems and deciding which ones to repair, although you need the biggest bang for your buck. You need return on investment.

You also want to fix the problems or change the processes that make the most trouble. What's causing the most trouble and problems should be looked at first. That way you don’t have anything holding the other changes back.

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