Lean Manufacturing

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Lean Manufacturing was formalized by Japanese manufacturing to identify the subtle inefficiencies that accumulate into massive losses.

These were identified as muda: waste, as in a waste of time. If we trim off this waste, we can become a lean, mean, efficient machine.

The 7 Deadly Wastes are:

  1. Transport: Moving product unnecessarily
  2. Inventory: Missing materials critical to process
  3. Motion: Moving people unnecessarily
  4. Waiting: Stopping processes due to bottlenecks
  5. Overproduction: Processing parts not needed yet
  6. Over-Processing: Delays due to equipment issues
  7. Defects: Making mistakes that must be corrected

These can be remembered as “TIM WOOD”; a vile thief you should avoid!

You may already be living your life lean. For example, when you come home with a truckload of groceries, you face two options:

  1. Take two trips to carry in the groceries
  2. Push yourself to bring them all in at once!

If you chose option 2, you avoided a wasted Motion from making two trips! You’ve saved yourself some time living lean! This may seem like a small gain, but living with continuous improvement builds on good habits and maximizes our limited resources.

Lean Activities

Even if something works, there are always opportunity for improvements.

  1. 5S Methodology: Organize your space and mind to remove the clutter
  2. Gemba walk: Review your schedule through a critical lens
  3. Kanban: Organize your workflow
  4. Kaizen: Buckle down and make it happen!

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