A PM ON LEAN PRODUCTION
The background and core principles of Lean production
History
The very early stages of Lean production go way back in the 18th century with Eli Whitney promoting and popularizing the “interchangeable parts” manufacturing method. Thereafter, the foundations of the ideology emerged through time in particular with the “moving assembly line” of Henry Ford (1908-1913) and the mistake proofing (Poka Yoke) and five Whys methods developed by Sakichi Toyoda (1920s) who also happens to be the father of the Toyota company (Poksinska, 2014). In 1950, Dr. William Edwards Deming introduced the Japanese industry with the Lean quality principles that further lead to the Toyota Production system developed by Taichi Ohno in the 50s
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WOMACK & JONES (1996) have identified a “comprehensive Lean business logic called Lean Thinking”. According to them, there are five steps that can help companies become ‘Lean organizations’:
- Define value precisely from the perspective of the end customer in terms of a specific product with specific capabilities offered at a specific price and time.
- Identify the entire value stream for each product or product family and eliminate waste.
- Make the remaining value-creating steps flow.
- Design and provide what the customer wants only when the customer wants it.
- Pursue perfection.
What Polmo Ltd. can gain from implementing Lean?
As of today, Polmo Ltd presents a certain number of issues:
- Manufacturing process unchanged since the company startup
- basic quality management
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By implementing all the Lean principles previously presented and, most importantly, by grasping the Lean philosophy, they will certainly reduce their manufacturing costs, solve their functional issues and gain back customers satisfaction.
References
Hines, P., Holweg, M. & Rich, N., 2004. Learning to evolve: A review of contemporary lean thinking. International Journal of Operations & Production Management, 24(10), pp. 994-1011.
LIKER, J. K. & MEIER, D., 2006. PART 1: LEARNING FROM TOYOTA. In: THE TOYOTA WAY FIELDBOOK : A Practical guide for implementing TOYOTA 's 4Ps. New York: The McGraw-Hill Companies, pp. 3-29.
Poksinska, B., 2014. Lean Production Course: Introduction. Linköping University, s.n.
SUGIMORI, Y., KUSUNOKI, K. & UCHIKAWA, F. C. a. S., 1977. Toyota production system and Kanban system Materialization of just-in-time and respect-for-human system. International Journal of Production Research, 15(6), pp. 553-564.
Womack, J. P. & Jones, D. T., 1996. Beyond Toyota: how to root out waste and pursue perfection. HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW, Septembre, pp.
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