Lean manufacturing implementation is a challenge…

Lean manufacturing offers many mental challenges for all levels in an organization. First of all believing there are wastes in the system is a challenge. People have a safe territory. They do not want to leave it. People are very comfortable in this territory, whether it is truly good or assumed to be good. Understanding the fact, there are wastes to be removed from the system offers a threat to the safety of this comfort zone. People therefore are not willing to come out of this, unless they see something they can't resist. For an example people will not see their high work in progress as a waste unless they have a good reason to see it as. If one can see huge lead time savings and improved flexibility as the results of removing work in progress from the system, then they will have less resistance in looking work in progress as a waste. With all these resistance, lean manufacturing is spreading throughout the world in a rapid phase. This implies the fact that there are many, many organizations understand the advantages offered by lean manufacturing. This goes to show how strong lean manufacturing principle and concept is. It has a proven ability of removing the wastes from the system.

The second phase of lean manufacturing is understanding the root causes of the wastes. Ones you understand the fact that your system has wastes, then it is the time to remove them from the system. This is necessary for a successful lean manufacturing implementation. How to do this? First of all, we have to understand the sequence in which wastes to be removed. Priority should be in removing large wastes which have biggest impact on the system and so on. Once this is done, we will have to understand the root causes for this problem. We will have to map these root causes, and systematically remove them. We can use a lean manufacturing tool like Ishikawa diagram or a cause and effect diagram in doing this.

When we know the root causes, it is the time to remove these root causes from the system. Actually this can be described as the starting point of lean manufacturing implementation process. This process needs lot of skill, leadership and support. Talking to the emotions of the people is one of the important aspects of this phase. For an example, if you have found out that machine breakdown as the prime source of problem, then you will have to work with the inefficiencies of maintenance process. This will create pressure among the people in the maintenance department if they are not trained well to understand the lean manufacturing principle. These situations must be handled with great care.

At the end of the process of removing these root causes, it is very important to make sure that you have successfully removed the waste. Removing 90% will not do. Once you make sure that you have successfully removed the identified waste, and then you can repeat the same cycle for another problem. This will go on and on. Problems will be identified continuously and will be removed continuously.