The manufacturing industry is changing. Streamlining processes, boosting efficiency, and increasing automation is becoming a massive priority as manufacturers try to compete with global manufacturing competitors. The higher costs of doing business in North America already put manufacturers at a disadvantage when compared to those in Asian countries like India or Thailand. Manufacturers must find ways to increase their productivity without increasing their spending, and the solution to that is lean manufacturing.
For any company investing in a new project, it’s essential to calculate the cost vs. the benefits. Lean manufacturing does take time and resources to implement, but once done, it is hugely beneficial. You may have come across the term lean manufacturing when researching process enhancement, but what exactly is it, and how can it benefit your company?
What is lean manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing, at its core, is eliminating any form of wastage from the manufacturing process. It involves techniques and methods that reduce how much labor and material you waste while maintaining or boosting production levels. By lowering the wastage and increasing production, manufacturing companies will experience substantial gains in their overall profit.
The concept of lean manufacturing began in Japan with the Toyota Production System and its “just-in-time” manufacturing method. The just-in-time method involves each process within the manufacturing facility producing just enough to complete the next step, with no excess. It ensures continuous production flow while eliminating both product and material wastage. It also includes implementing automated processes that are supervised by humans, which help maintain quality control, reduce human error, and minimize downtime.
To summarize, lean manufacturing eliminates every part of the manufacturing process that doesn’t provide value. The best way to implement lean manufacturing in your company is by hiring an expert who has a lean manufacturing degree; click here to find out more. These highly educated professionals know how to assess your current operations and identify ways to make it leaner. They will help you redesign how you run your processes to reduce your spending and increase productivity.
The benefits of lean manufacturing
Before restructuring your entire manufacturing operation, it’s helpful to understand how you can benefit from the change. The value of lean manufacturing will vary from company to company based on what industry you’re in and what product you’re manufacturing. That said, every industry can benefit from implementing lean manufacturing processes. Here are some of the many benefits of adopting a leaner manufacturing facility.
- Boost product quality
Lean manufacturing will help to increase the quality of the products that your company manufactures. Since your processes will be more efficient, you will free up employee time to work on product development, research, and innovation. You can also re-assign employees who typically would work on product lines or dealing with wastage to strengthen your quality control measures. When there are problems with product quality, the team has the time and resources to react and create processes that eliminate the problem from occurring again. The overall quality of the products you manufacture will dramatically benefit as a result.
- Employee satisfaction
Employees want to feel valued and like they are contributing to a bigger picture. When employees are continually doing meaningless tasks and trying to find ways to fill their time, it leads to boredom and dissatisfaction. By implementing lean manufacturing processes, you will increase employee productivity and job satisfaction as a result. During the implementation process, you will require input and feedback from your staff regarding ways jobs could run more efficiently. Employees that work in the plant daily will have the best idea where wastage is occurring, and therefore their input is extremely important.
When employees see that their opinion and suggestions are valued, they will feel more fulfilled in their roles. They will know that their employers respect them and their work, which is a massive boost for morale. Employees can feel a sense of uncertainty in the workplace when they aren’t involved in what’s going on. Employee involvement will boost their confidence in their job and help them perform more effectively as a result.
- Improved efficiency
Every industry on the planet wants to be more efficient, and manufacturing is no exception. By implementing lean manufacturing processes, you can ensure that every member of your staff is working efficiently. You’ll no longer have staff trying to fill their time with useless tasks or twiddling their thumbs while an automated piece of equipment does a job. Each employee’s role is re-configured to maximize their productive output and ensure that the time they have is all used wisely.
Instead of equipment and machinery, creating excess product and wastage will make exactly what you need and what you can sell. With fewer touchpoints for error, you will be able to produce more high-quality product than you could before. By tightening up all your processes, management can identify where they have problems, allowing you to continue to improve them and make them more efficient.
- Staffing reductions
Implementing a leaner manufacturing model will allow you to reduce the amount of staff needed to complete essential manufacturing tasks. You’ll get more done, with fewer people, therefore having more of your workforce to allocate elsewhere. While that could mean that you could entirely eliminate those staff members, that wouldn’t be the most ethical approach. Instead, you can reallocate employees to other areas, invest in training them, and have them focus on development and maintenance.
- Safer workplace
A considerable component of lean manufacturing is visual management. By reducing the waste and junk you have lying around, your facility will become way more organized. You will be able to see a clearer picture of what is going on, including equipment that needs maintenance or anything that looks abnormal. Visual scanning and identifying these issues will allow you to address them rather than have them go unnoticed for weeks or even months at a time. Unmaintained equipment, improperly stored stock and extra materials lying around can all pose a risk to employee safety. You can eliminate these hazards more effectively when they are easily visible in an organized and clean facility.
Lean manufacturing will help eliminate fire hazards, prevent objects from falling, ensure emergency exits are clear, reduce the potential for slips and trips, and ultimately make the workplace safer.
- Minimizes waste
The main principle of lean manufacturing is waste reduction, which is also one of its most significant benefits. Production facilities often have way too much waste. From ordering too many materials from suppliers, wasting those materials on overproduction, and wastage on faulty products, a considerable portion of manufacturing costs go to items that will never see the light of day. Stock shelves fill up with materials that you’ll never need again, gathering dust until you decide to dispose of them.
Waste comes in other forms as well when talking about manufacturing. Time is money, and wasted time is a loss in profit. Lean manufacturing means looking at ways your employees spend their time and finding ways to reduce the time that is needed to perform their job tasks. For example, if an employee has to walk a long distance to get materials for their production line, you could reduce the wastage by moving materials to closer proximity. Another example could be if employees need to search the plant for the engineer every time there is a problem with the equipment. Instead, you could give staff walkie talkies so that they wouldn’t have to waste time wandering around forever trying to find someone.
Another form of minimizing waste is reducing product faults and defects by ensuring equipment is always properly maintained.
- Increased profits
The most crucial benefit for CEO’s and company owners is the increase in profits they will attain from using a lean manufacturing system. Each component of lean manufacturing is structured with increasing profits in mind. Statistically, 1-3% of a company’s total production goes to waste. That adds up to a lot of money very quickly. Not only can lean manufacturing help you reduce that figure but can also help you make even more money. Higher productivity and automated processes will allow you to produce more product than before, meaning more profits. Plus, you’ll need less staff on-site to help with production. Your products will also be of higher quality, meaning you can even potentially revaluate your pricing structure.
Putting lean manufacturing into practice
Implementing lean manufacturing practices in your facility is the hard part but definitely worth the effort. Getting a professional on board who has their master’s in lean manufacturing will help you streamline the process and make the most beneficial changes. An expert can analyze your current procedures and facility set up and identify precisely where you can do things differently. They will liaison with staff on the floor to get their feedback and see where they feel improvements are necessary as well. Having a cohesive and united approach to the changes will allow you to transition seamlessly, start operating more efficiently, and begin turning some more profit.
Pinstripe Magazine Staff
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