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“[...]But lean manufacturing is the norm, not the exception, in the global economy. Yet it’s also true that hands-on workers can be innovators about how to improve production and streamline work flow.”
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See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
“The Japanese are renowned worldwide for their car production where the concept of the management philosophy Lean derives from. It all began at Toyota when the car manufacturers discovered a new, more efficient method of producing cars valued by customers all over the world. The principles learned at Toyota became known as Lean which is claimed can be applied to almost any business. The core principle is creating value by reducing waste and unnecessary risk.”
While informing us that the Irish government has an agency promoting Lean, this article reflects common misconceptions.
No, it’s not a “Japanese management philosophy.” it is an approach developed by individuals who happened to be Japanese, which is not the same. Most Japanese today do not know or practice it, and quite a few non-Japanese do.
And this emphasis on “creating value” is an American talking point, not the Toyota Production System.
According to the article “Toyota benchmark themselves constantly,” which is news to me. While it is clear that Toyota is on the lookout for new ideas, I had not heard of Toyota doing benchmarking surveys of competitors. My understanding is that Toyota’s management considers such surveys to be a waste of time.
The article equates Lean with Continuous Improvement, giving the impression that it’s all there is to it.
And finally, the article repeats the Business Week claim that the Shingo Prize is “the Nobel Prize for operational excellence.”
See on www.irishtimes.com
See on Scoop.it – lean manufacturing
This article is all about the efficiency of warehouse operations and the way “Lean” can reduce warehouse labor. It says almost nothing about the effectiveness of warehouse operations. From this article’s perspective, driving an empty forklift is a waste to be eliminated, but there is not a word about using other means than forklifts to move goods, in perhaps less than pallet quantities, such as carts or small trains. There is not a word either about locating frequently used items in the locations that are easiest to reach, or collocating items that are frequently used together…
At least in manufacturing operations, the number of people used in warehouse operations is a tiny fraction of the number used in production, and increasing their productivity is not the issue. A Lean implementation may instead increase their numbers to improve service and achieve much larger productivity gains in production.
The pursuit of fully loaded forklifts and trucks may increase the efficiency of storage, retrieval, and transportation operations, but also delay e deliveries and hurt the performance of the business as a whole. This is not just my own observations. It has been described as a systematic phenomenon by researchers like Hau Lee.
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Welcome to the Lean times
Manufacturers’ Monthly
So why is Toyota’s management style (A.K.A. Lean management) so different from the others? Firstly Toyota’s system is built on 2 pillars that everyone must promote and follow,.
Troy Taylor recounts his experience of working at Toyota in the UK and how it survived and thrived while competitors closed plamts. He sees it as showing the way to Australian car makers.
See on www.manmonthly.com.au
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“After the March 11 monster earthquake and tsunami wiped out large parts of Japan, headlines focused on the near-meltdown of Fukushima. Recently, I learned that there was a strong likelihood of a worldwide economic meltdown, caused by a microchip factory 80 miles south of Fukushima. Here is the story of how the crisis was contained.
‘I was already retired when the earthquake came,’ remembers a Toyota official who requested that his name is not published. He is a seasoned production expert, one of the few alive who received personal training from Taiichi Ohno, the father of the Toyota production system. ‘I thought, let others handle the problem, but I was wrong.’ He was recalled and asked to spearhead the Toyota part of the reconstruction effort.”
While critics have often claimed that low inventories made Lean supply chains vulnerable to natural disasters, Toyota’s record in actual events says otherwise, in cases including, in the US, the Mississippi flood of 1993 and, in Japan, the Aisin Seiki fire of 1997 and now the Fukushima earhquake of 2011.
As it turns out, the combination of vigilance in logistics and relationships that make it possible to enlist the supply chain in rapid recovery works better than inventory. In the case of the Fukushima earthquake, more inventory would simply have meant more losses.
See on www.thetruthaboutcars.com
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“It is by constantly developing our people and focusing on fostering a culture of continuous improvement that we can hope to, one day, achieve success. This was the message of the 4th annual LMJ Conference, a two-day event held last week by TM’s sister publication Lean Management Journal in Birmingham. Manufacturing, naturally, made a very important contribution to the conference, with speakers from Volvo, Chrysler and Toyota Material Handling providing highlights from Day One.
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“TEL AVIV — Israel’s Defense Ministry is slightly ahead of schedule in a 10-year government-mandated plan to save 30 billion shekels (US $8.4 billion) through 2017, but no thanks, uniformed officers say, to the ministry’s high-priced contract with an international consulting firm.
Nearly five years into the plan, high-ranking officers here insist the lion’s share of the 9.2 billion shekels saved thus far stem from internal, self-generated measures, despite costly and — in many cases — unrealistic reforms proposed by New York-based McKinsey & Co.”
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Work station at Dortec
“Ford Australia’s move to close its two Australian plants from 2016 and transition to import-only brands only reinforces the sense of a looming death knell. But that isn’t the case with every developed-world auto sector struggling to compete with high domestic production costs and cheaper, mostly-Asian-built imports. Canada’s auto sector has also struggled with factors that would sound familiar to an Australian onlooker, such as its own high dollar, volatile domestic demand, offshore competition and wavering government subsidies.
But as much as those conditions in Canada instigated uncertainty, cuts and job losses, that struggle, which gained pace as the global financial crisis took hold, has also produced a level of productivity-focused innovation worth noting for any manufacturer or policymaker wondering if Australia’s auto sector has crossed its rubicon.”
Ford is closing its plants in Australia, which threatens the entire local automotive industry. The author looks to Canada for a model Australia could follow for this industry to survive and thrive. The article is mostly about Canada, and specificially about the Magna Dortec door latch plant Northeast of Toronto.
See on www.businessspectator.com.au
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“Lean manufacturing practices can create efficiency and reduce waste, but smaller inventories put companies at risk for major supply chain disruptions. Many organizations are reconsidering their procurement strategies for emergency preparedness after discovering their operational vulnerability in the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, as well as the flooding in Thailand, according to Lloyd’s.”
Since when is purchasing parts from half-way around the world a “Lean manufacturing practice”? Toyota and Honda do import parts into the US from Japan, but they have been working steadily to increase the domestic content of the cars they build in the US.
In a Lean supply chain, you use as many local suppliers as possible and only buy from afar if you can’t help it. And local suppliers are subject to the same disasters as you, and inventory in the pipeline is just one more asset that can be destroyed in the earthquake or tsunami.
In the late 1930s, the German aircraft industry organized its supply chain in a system called “ABC,” which involved frequent deliveries from nearby suppliers and almost no inventory at the assembly site. It was in anticipation of a man-made disaster: enemy air raids. Allied bombs could not destroy components that had yet tp be made.
The article just reiterates the old belief that you can protect yourself against shortages by holding inventory. It may work for crude oil, but not for the 30,000 items needed to build a car. To protect against a Fukushima type event, you would have to keep weeks of safety stocks of all the items all the time, which is not a practical idea.
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