Lean Manufacturing
Why use lean manufacturing? Simply, lean manufacturing is a great competitive weapon that reduces your costs, improves quality and improves your bottom line. If you are competing against off shore competition, you need lean manufacturing!
Lean production is aimed at the elimination of waste in every area of production including customer relations, product design, supplier networks and factory management. Its goal is to incorporate less human effort, less inventory, less time to develop products, and less space to become highly responsive to customer demand while producing top quality products in the most efficient and economical manner possible.
Lean excellence is a coordinated response to today's highly competitive environment. Its roots lie in manufacturing and are strongly influenced by the production system principles originally developed at Toyota.
What kind of results should you expect from a lean manufacturing implementation?
- Defects reduced by 20%.
- Delivery Lead Times reduced by more than 75%
- On Time Delivery improved to 99+%
- Productivity (sales per employee) increases of 15-35% per year
- Inventory (Working capital) reductions of more than 75%
- Return on Assets improvement of 100+%
What is involved in implementing lean manufacturing? First, and most important, top management commitment. This must be a key company objective. It takes a lot of hard work and doesn't happen overnight. It involves a real cultural change in the organization.
Lean makes use of many tools and techniques. Every operation is different and no two companies put these improvements in place the same way and use the same tools and techniques the same way. Discrete manufacturers, process manufacturing and job shops can all benefit greatly. Read about the tools and techniques and then call Doug Williams and Associates for an analysis on how we can help your business.
Lean is about doing more with less:
- Less time, inventory, space, people, & money.
- Lean is about speed and getting it right the first time.
- Lean is about eliminating waste.
Doug Williams And Associates can help you with Lean Manufacturing or other small business issues, please call us at (360) 695-8100 or email us.
