How Does Lean Manufacturing Work?

The Elimination of Waste

Lean manufacturing is a management system that seeks to generate more value from less work. This system may be used by an organization's leaders to identify and eliminate seven sources of waste that commonly plague any production process. These seven types of waste are overproduction, (creating a product absent of value), inventory (unnecessary stockpiling), conveyance (unnecessary movement of a product's components), correction (repairing errors in production), motion (movements exposing operators to injury), processing (any unnecessary steps in product development) and waiting (when operators are idle as a work-flow is processed). Waste within an organization must be identified routinely, not simply once, in order aid leaders in developing new production methods that remove each recent element of waste.

Single-piece flow functions both to decrease defects arising from production as well as to increase production speed. Opposed to the batch-and-queue processing system, the single-piece flow system reduces inventory used in the production process to a bare minimum. As a result, less space is required to store and manage such inventory. Furthermore, if defects occur at a particular point within the production process, they are simple to identify since they impede overall productivity. Thus, managers are quickly able to focus attention on root causes of inefficiency within a system.

Repairing defects that occur within a system requires management to communicate openly with operators, and vice versa. The organization must foster a culture of improvement, which encourages creative problem-solving by all parties involved in an organization's success. Trained inspectors work alongside employees in order to cooperatively address opportunities for improvement. They are aided by measurement tools, such as statistical control charts, "traffic signals" to trigger production speed or even community bulletin boards. Thus, the removal of defects from within an organization is a constant process, requiring vigilance and flexibility.