Lean philosophy

The concept of focusing on the process, like most lean philosophy, is very simple to understand. Lean tools and techniques all seem to be based on a commonsense approach. So, what prevents the wide acceptance, or more importantly, the success of lean in more businesses There is no one answer, but here are a few I would ask you to think about. 

Returnable containers are made of sturdy plashes and contain item-specific dunnage that separates and presents parts to assemblers one by one. The top shelf is slanted in the opposite direchon and used to return emphes. The main reason is that the containers used on the line side present parts to the assemblers, and the lean philosophy is that they must be designed for the assemblers convenience. In prachce, most plant managers view transporters and assemblers as equivalent, when in fact they are not. First, there are ten times more assemblers than transporters. Second, the assemblers are linked together in a chain of balanced operahons leading to shipment of a product. Each assembler is a bottleneck, so that each second added to an assembler job means one second added to the jobs of all the assemblers on the same line. 

Both Senguerd and De Voider were well disposed towards Cartesian natural philosophy, which attempts to reduce natural phenomena to quantitative descriptions of arithmic and geometry. However, Senguerd and De Voider were also critical of the French philosopher. Senguerd leaned more towards Gassendi s version of Epicurean atomism. De Voider, as we shall see later, also adopted some other philosophical ideas. Senguerd started teaching in... 

DuPont became an early adopter of the six sigma philosophy. Many other companies in the chemical industry have followed. The following groups are also actively promoting lean six sigma the National Institute for Science and Technology (NIST), the American Society for Quality, and a number of trade associations. It is very likely that the use of these business improvement methods will continue to expand in the future. 

In the remainder of this chapter, we first provide a more detailed discussion of JIT/TPS in Section 2, including its philosophy and implementation issues. In Section 3, we examine the kanban system, widely used in JIT for control of production and inventory, and present a case study of JIT/kanban implementation. Section 4 follows with an examination of JIT s relation to complementary approaches such as total quality management (TQM) and total productive maintenance (TPM), together with a case study of their joint implementation. In Section 5, we examine lean production as an extension of JIT, explore the relationship of JIT to theory of constraints (TOC), and conclude with a brief consideration of applications to service industries of JIT, TOC, and other manufacturing-based approaches. 

Lean is a production management philosophy and principle developed by Toyota aimed at adding value, reducing waste, and continuous improvement (Liker 2004). The introduction of lean principles to the constmction industry requires a... 

As I stated earlier, the kaizen blitz Is the most powerful people engagement, cultural Impact tool In a lean thinker s tool kit. I hope this kaizen overview that resulted In safety Improvements, cycle time gains, and people growth helped you better understand the power of this tool to drive change. Now, let s look at the application of all of the theory, philosophy, and benefits of the kaizen blitz In an actual kaizen event held In a small manufacturing plant. 

Lean A manufacturing philosophy that reduces the total cycle time... 

Lean safety The application of both the lean tools and management philosophy to create a continuous improvement safety culture. 

While low inventory levels are a key outcome of the Toyota Production System, the story does not end there. An important element of the philosophy is to work intelligently and eliminate waste in the entire system. The elimination of waste is termed Muda. There are seven commonly accepted sources of Muda in the extended Lean supply chain ... 

Bhasin S, Butcher P (2006) Lean viewed as a philosophy. J Manuf Tech Manag 17(l) 56-72... 

The Toyota Production system (TPS) is a philosophy of manufacturing that Toyota credits with its success in producing high quality automobiles. The concepts behind TPS underpin the lean manufacturing model. ... 

---