Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is a very broad term, lots of people have very different definitions as to what lean manufacturing is and what its main aims are. I will tell you my favorite one shortly.

Lean is about creating flow and reducing waste - oh and looking after the customer. Basically whatever you do, whatever you improve it should be something that the Customer actually wants.

Lean manufacturing is about defining value, i don't mean getting the accountant in to tell you how much your stock is worth, I mean what value as in what does the customer really want. The things that they want, quick delivery, a new product every 3 months, products in six different colour and one with fake fur. The features and the services that they want from you, if you can be better at giving them what they really want than your competitors are then you will be the one to get the business, oh unless you competitor makes it cheaper then the customer might compromise.. so lean is also about making things as economically as possible, wiping out all of the waste in your system if you can..

So lean is about the customer, lean is about efficiency and it is about cutting out waste.. It is also about flow, the stuff I am reading about this says that flow is what cuts out all of the waste and makes you efficient. Your value (the stuff the customer wants - nothing else or it is not value) should flow all the way from your raw materials (apples and sugar) to your customer (a quickly delivered still warm candy apple).

This value should not be piled up in a warehouse somewhere as stock or sat in the middle of a factory somewhere else for weeks on end waiting for the next machine to do its job. Your value should jump from process to process without any delays being made when the customer wants it, not sat on the shelf waiting just in case the customer might want it - would you accept a beer sat on the bar or want it poured when you got there?

So lean is about flow, value, the customer, efficiency and waste reduction or elimination.. I think I have it all, if not check out this web page for a cool definition of what is lean manufacturing.