Lean Overview

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• No one really knows what’s going on, but just keeps going

• No matter how hard you try, you don’t seem to be able to do things easily

• There are always fires to put out and they always keep coming back

• There is always too much to do and very often take work back home

• You are spending a lot of time dealing with unhappy customers

Is any of this familiar to you?

• You understand your customers’ needs and requirements

• Your processes are capable of meeting your customers’ requirements and are easy to follow

• You know exactly what you have to do and everyone working in synergy

• You have accurate data which enables you to manage by fact

• If an anomaly crops up, you can deal with it before it becomes a problem…

How about…

Think Differently:

“The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking which caused them”

Albert Einstein

Thinking OutcomesSystems

History of Lean

• Moving Assembly Line developed by Henry Ford in 1913

• Limitations

• Japanese reviewed Ford Thinking post WWII

• Introduced the Toyota Production System (TPS)

Toyota Production System

Lean Thinking

• John Krafcik, 1987

• Compared Japanese and Western automotive industries.

• Found that Japanese used less effort, less capital investment, less space and less time. Therefore very “lean”!!

• Lean is an improvement approach to improve flow and eliminate waste

• ‘Lean Thinking’ (Womack and Jones, 1996)

5 Key Principles of Lean Thinking

1. Customer Value - Understand the customer and their perception of value

2. Value Stream - Identify and understand all activities, across all areas, for each process and the wastes associated within

3. Create Flow - Eliminate wastes so that the Value can flow

4. Customer Pull - Only deliver what your customers needs, when they need it

5. Pursue Perfection - Continuously Improve to meet changing requirements and demands

In a nutshell

• “All we are doing is looking at a timeline from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that timeline by removing the non-value added wastes”

Taiichi Ohno, Toyota Production Systems, 1978

Customer Orders

Cash in BankHow long does this take; How many steps are involved?

How can we reduce this timeline?