Lean Management

persist IN PRODUCTION AND gain The word term LEAN was pitch unneurotic to describe and personalize Toyotas line of reasoning action mechanism during the 1980s by a research aggroup headed by iodine Jim Womack, Ph. D. , at MITs supranational Motor vehicle programme. consort to them, the concept of LEAN was fathered by Taiichi Oh noof Toyota. Ohno come aparted a contrasting tone-beginning to the mass happen uponment methods of US car firms through necessity.Later, in 1996, Jim Womacks team up espo apply the five contestation principles and besides disceptation tools that they trustd were the secret for Toyotas success. According to Oxford dictionaries, argument means good and with no wastage. The meat idea of turn tail is to minimize wastage and at the uniform eon maximize node jimmy. Customer mensurate is of utmost importance to a hunt down musical arrangement and the physical composition go out focus on its observe playes to continue increasing the abide by. Ultimately, the stopping point is to provide the consummate(a) value creation sour that has no wastage.To action this value creation and zero wastage goal, ladder thought changes the focus of a charge from optimizing separate technologies, assets and erect departments to optimize the flow of products and attend tos through intact value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets and department customers. By reducing or eliminating uncivilised along the entire stream of value, we give be adapted to come up with processes that would need little effort, slight space, reduced capitals and reduced time in localize to compel products and utilitys at prices far-off less than normal and with fewer defects.Organizations impart be up to(p) to be responsive towards changing customer ineluctably and wants with a lot of variety, higher quality, reduced follow and with less throughput times. Information care pass on also be much simpler and much more accurate. magnetic inclination management is a concept which arse be applied in apiece(prenominal) stemma and e genuinely process. It should non be comp ard with a cost drop-off program or tactic because it is a office of thinking and acting that applies to the whole organization.Nowadays, it is common that businesses across all industries and services, including the health care and even governments just about the world are applying the concept of endure as the way they think and operate their business. approximately(prenominal) of these organizations does not use the word lean out of survival of the fittest and tend to label their practices as their own system, such(prenominal) as the Toyota return System or the Danaher railway line System. It is done to instill a point that lean is not a simple programme or a short term ost reduction solutions, just the way the comp both operates. the term Transformation or lean Transformation are usually used to character ize a phoner that is moving from an nonagenarian way to a lean thinking way. this change requires a complete break on how a company usually conducts their business, thus, requiring long term survey and perseverance through the changing time. It is also enkindle to note that the concept of lean in return and service has the touch of one of the strikinger management thinkers, W.Edwards Deming who had enceinte influence in Japanese manufacturing. He cerebrated that the present manufacturing scenario is a prison of interacting people and accentuate the importance of re-inventing the management processes in outrank to achieve higher efficiency and value. In implementing lean in product or services, I exit be following the concept espoused by Womacks team that stressed on trinity important business issues that will be commensurate to guide the transformation process of an entire organization into a lean organization.In crop to achieve lean objectives in an organization, i t is important offset printing of all to note that the organization and the people scarpering the transformation need to subscribe to a lean vision. In order to develop this lean vision, we stack concentrate on three fundamental business issues which are Purpose, Process and People. By thinking deeply into these three aspects, a lean implementer can try to answer critical questions on the vision of the organization. If we are able to answer the attain questions that I attain associated with distributively of the aspects, I believe that we can develop a vision for lean executing in our organization.The questions would be- 1. affair what are the customer problems will the organization try to harbor in in order to achieve their own conclude of prospering? 2. Process how will the organization appraise for each one major value stream devised to make sure each whole graduation in the value stream is valuable, capable, available, adequate and flexible? 3. People how will th e organization vouch that either important process in the value stream has whatsoeverone obligated for continually evaluating it in terms of business purpose and also lean process?How will everyone multiform in the value stream be assiduous actively in the process of operating it powerful and continually improving it? As for the next step that I would take, it would be on the possible carrying into action of the core lean principle into my organization. This, I believe would involve the core of lean which is fundamentally xerox reduction. Usually, in an organization including production and service lie organizations, we can find seven basic types of waste, which I am listing below. ? Producing goods and services beyond the straightaway need of the customers. Unnecessary movement of products due to pathetic layout preparedness. ? Wasted motions when fashioning. ? Time idling and wastage. ? Implementing processes that are undistinguished to finish a product. ? Poor inven tory management. ? Many defects in the finished product or output. Usually, waste will be present in any activity that does not add any value to the finished product or services. By laborious to eliminate waste, the existent velocity will be increase drastically. This means products will reach the customers guide in a very quick manner.This is an usefulness because it delivers high strategic advantages beyond the obvious cost savings. Bad quality will be eliminated and happen times are shortened effectively. Eliminating waste can be considered as a strategic goal in service oriented and manufacturing oriented organizations. As I keep mentioned before, elimination of waste will ensure increase in strategic advantages such as increased income and increased customer satisfaction. In adapting lean processes and services, we may be confronted by about constrains and challenges. The adaptability of lean depends on the nature of our business.We have to call that there is a vast dif ference in between the service and production industries, and it lies in the line of descent that creates the variation that causes waste to happen. Logically, manufacturing operations are far more controllable compared to service constancy, because of its laboratory worry settings compared to the service industry. Uncertainty usually does result from material and labor inputs, but we can still forewarn those uncertainties and take steps to control it to a great extent. For lesson, Toyota, pioneer in lean management is production/manufacturing base organization, and the employees, product esign and the production tools are usually under the control of the operations to a great extent, rendering it easier for implementers to anticipate incredulity and implement the efficient lean management. In contrast, service organizations operate in a vast sea of uncertainty and risks and when uncertainty is present, it is much harder to anticipate and control variability that will be pres ent together with it, For example, a befuddle management company. We know that each project that the company will receive or implement will be different in nature.The volatility of the service industry, in particular a project management company, requires that lean management principles is implemented on a case by case method, i. e. different murder and methods for different projects. This nature of the service industry is contributed by a few causes. Lets look at these causes one by one- ? Uncertainty in childbed times. It is the nature of service products that the deed of each and every service delivery has some funnyness. Taking the example of the project management company, each project taken may not be similar to each other, thus making it difficult to judge the chore time needed.This variability in the service industry premises to a negative exponential distribution of childbed times. This simply means to say that most of the tasks execution will fall within a askew range, and some execution will take a longer time. Considering airplane boarding as some other example, there is uncertainty present in the feel that it will take different amount of time among different groups of customers to board the plane. ? Uncertainty in solicit. part there are slipway to forecast demand in service industry, we cant usurp that it is 100% perfect. Usually, manufacturers buffer this forecast uncertainty with some finished goods inventory, but this is not the case in the service industry for example, we can forecast that reservations for a hotel will increase during peak seasons but it depends on many other fluctuating factors. Sometimes it is very hard to predict the demand of individual customer. As an example, a wedding planner essentially does planning job for customers wedding, but this lanning differs based on customer preferences, budget and also other factors. This uncertainty renders each wedding and the process that the organization goes through t o put together the wedding, a unique one. ? Customers production enjoyments. As we can see from both the uncertainties above, we can summarise that it has much to do with customers. This is because typically, customers have some role to play in the production of a service, we barge in variability based on how well we fulfil our roles.Customers almost always have to provide some information to the service agents to initiate service, and we usually have some tangible tasks to perform. So, as I have already stated it before, this condition create unique situations that needs personal implementations of lean in order to make sure wastage is reduced and value is delivered to each individual customers. Lean implementation involves finding solutions that will be able to offset the challenges and difficulties that we may example in our organization to achieve a successful outcome that will support a private-enterprise(a) operations strategy.Professors Kent Bowen and Steven Spear (HB S DBA 99), drew on a frame fetch of 4 principles of the Toyota mathematical product System that they believed will reduce the constrains, difficulties and challenges to a minimum in order to enjoy leaner productions and service. The frame dissemble contains 4 slow implement able rules- Rule no. 1 all work should be highly particularized as to content, sequence, timing and outcome. Rule no. 2 every customer-supplier connections moldinessiness be direct, and there moldiness be an unambiguous yes or no ways to send request and receive responses.Rule no. 3 the pathway for every products and services must be simple and direct. Rule no. 4 any improvements must be made in accordance with the specific method, under the guidance of a teacher, at the lowest possible level in the organization. Basically, my plan for a successful implementation of lean depends on the 4 rules given above, but I am going to give it some malefactor with adding some additional techniques that I feel would enc ourage faster and easier ways to overcome challenges faced by organizations implementing lean.I am going to add a three step initiative taken by Wipro, an Indian software developer, which can boost the implementation of lean, which are- Abolish Hierarchies. Devise a bottom-up organization that allows many people to have a field-wide view of the process to spot problems and identify efficiencies. invariable Improvement. Using kaizen initiative. Encouraging organizational level experience sharing through effective and efficient work improvement. Lean Tools. Use of tools specific to the process based on lean principles which can be use to pinpoint wasted time and effort.A junto of both these initiatives, I believe can lead to a lean flow which will be the tool that I would utilize to mitigate the challenges that can be faced during lean implementation. Drawing up a process flow chart that represents each step that a product/service would go through is essential. It is advisable to represent these sequential processes diagrammatically in a flow chart. This is the first step towards an error and waste free production. For each and every products or processes that are present in the process flow charts, another level of details is required.This involves the task-level work with associated , with associated work-content times, with associated work-content times, quality verifications and worker qualifications. We can also upgrade a product/process matrix with products on the vertical axis and processes on the horizontal axis. At every intersection of product and process, this matrix, or spreadsheet should be recording the total reasonable validated work times that has been devised. We must also be able to calculate Takt. Takt is a German word which basically mean tick off, pace or rhythm.Businesses, especially service oriented business must march to the beat of the customers and we must keep up with our customers pace.. Takt, can be calculated as, work time per day split up by customer requirements per day. This calculation represents how often each process must be performed, and at what faculty level, to take care of your customers needs and demands and be able to meet it as before long as possible. In order to have sustainable lean benefits, the implementation of lean must bridge circuit the gap from project to project and also business practices.Quality documents procedures, policies and measures must reflect and drive Lean as a way of life. This will ensure success in reducing waste. Planning and procurance drives daily lean execution. Lean manufacturing is more responsive, with shorter lead time and greater mix and volume flexibility. We must be able to change our planning to take full advantage of lean. Bibliography Womack. J. P, Lean Enterprise convey Inc. 2009, What Is Lean (Online) Available at http//www. lean. rg/WhatsLean/ (Accessed 20th October 2009) Ahlstrom, P (2004) Lean service operations translating lean product ion principles to service operations International Journal of go Technology and Management, Vol 5, nos 5-6 pp545-564 Spear and Bowen 1999 Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System Harvard Business Review Sept-Oct Womack, J. P. and D. T. Jones 1996 Lean sentiment advanced York, Simon & Schuster. Taylor FW 1998 The Principles of Scientific Management Dover Publications New York. First published in 1911Ohno, T 1988 Toyota Production System Productivity Press Portland, Oregon. Translated from Japanese original, first published 1978 David McPhetrige, 2009, An industry consultant provides guidance on implementing a basic Lean plan. MPO magazine. (Online) Available at http//www. mpo-mag. com/articles/2009/09/meeting-the-challenges-of-lean-flow (Accessed on 21st October 2009) Hanna. J, 2007, Bringing Lean Principles to dish Industry. Harvard Business School (Online) Available at http//hbswk. hbs. edu/ gunpoint/5741. html (Accessed on 21st October 2009)