Lean Is Tool Based

Lean manufacturing is a program that aids in reducing waste and improving the overall productivity of your company as long as you commit to it and help your employees to understand how it works. Properly training them in lean is an important step in the lean process. You need to be able to look at what type of lean tools are available and to help you figure out methods in which you can help your employees to feel comfortable with lean so they are able to understand it and to use it daily. Lean is not a short term solution, it is a system that you need to commit to on a daily basis and to have it become the standard for your company.

Lean was originally created by Toyota as a part of the Toyota Production System. It has been changed from time to time and new tools have been created to aid in assisting companies in ways that they can become successful and to help them focus their efforts on fixing the problems that are plaguing their company. Lean manufacturing is something that is well known and it's a program that has been able to provide many companies with waste reduction, increased employee morale, and a stronger bottom line overall.

With lean you will typically have the identification of 7 wastes and then to determine which tools you want to use. Using the 7 wastes you can find different ways to provide the customers with valuable products. This is what your main goal needs to be. When you do not provide them with the right type of value, you lose their trust and the overall credibility in the company is decreased. You must be able to know and understand what the customers want and to exceed their standards. This is one of the only ways that you will be able to remain competitive in your industry and to keep customers coming back.

How do you use lean? It starts with management as it needs to be carefully planned for the company. It's a good idea to consider using a lean consultant to help you out as they can make the program into a special one for your company. Reducing the tension that your employees have about resisting the changes can really make the program successful. When you bring in a lean consultant your employees may listen to them because they have all the answers to their questions and they know that this person has been able to really offer success to other companies.

The tools that you use need to fit your company. The tools are used to assist in identifying the wastes and then eliminating the wastes from occurring within your company. Having a quality end product to offer is easy to do when everyone is in charge of different areas and they are all monitoring the issues and looking for a chance to improve the company with lean. What are some tools to consider using? How about trying the following:
- 5S
- Bottleneck analysis
- Continuous Flow
- Gemba
- Just in time
- Kaizen
- Muda
- Root Cause Analysis
- Standardized Work
- Value Stream Mapping

Sometimes it may be a good idea to start with one tool and then to determine if you want to add other tools on later. Using 5S is a great place to start as it helps to you get rid of all the waste and then to organize the company. After 5S you can use standardized systems with other things like value stream mapping to keep the company processes working right.