Lean manufacturing is a manufacturing process/system without waste or a manufacturing process with high efficiency. Lean manufacturing helps organizations improve the efficiency of the manufacturing process by eliminating waste & non-value-added activities in the manufacturing system.
Lean manufacturing is?
- Identification of waste within the manufacturing process and elimination of waste.
- Improves efficiency of processes
- Improve value addition in product and service
- Reduce or eliminate the waste
Lean manufacturing principles:
Following lean manufacturing principles widely used in the industry. Let’s understand each principle one by one.
- Waste Identification & Elimination ( all 7 or 8 types of waste)
- Value Stream Mapping
- Concurrent engineering
- Early supplier involvement
- Value Addition to process and customer
- Establish a pull system (avoid push system)
- Adopt first-time-right approach (perfection)
- Adopt mistake-proofing instead of human dependent process
- Adopt automation / Industry 4.0
- Kaizen
- Total Quality Management
Lean manufacturing examples
What are 3 examples of lean manufacturing?
It’s Muda, Mura, and Muri.
The lean manufacturing concept is originally initiated in Japan by Toyota. The concept of lean manufacturing is explained in the following three types of waste.
Muda (Waste)
Mura (Uneven)
Muri (Overburden)
The above types of waste are well known in the industry and this waste not only reduces the efficiency of the manufacturing or business process but also increases the cost of operation.
Eventually, a lack of lean processes ends up with
- Delayed delivery,
- Poor customer satisfaction, and
- Less profit!
Let’s understand each type of waste
The following graphics help you to understand what is the meaning of Muda-Mura & Muri.
Muda (Waste):
In Japanese, Muda means waste, non-value-added activities, or non-usefulness.
Mura (Unevenness):
In Japanese, Mura means irregularities or unevenness or lack of uniformity.
Muri (Overburden):
Muri is a Japanese word. Meaning of Muri means overburden, overcapacity.
Let’s understand each type of waste in detail,
Lean manufacturing 7 wastes:
The following list helps you to understand different types of waste i.e. Muda.
| Types of Waste | Causes of Waste |
| Waiting | Waste of time and non-value-added activities due to an unbalanced process. Uneven tack time leads to increased waiting time between two processes. |
| Transportation | Unnecessary or excessive transportation of goods, raw materials, or finished products. Unplanned logistics route work lack of daily milk run concept, lack of packaging concept. |
| Motion | Excessive movement of operator or machine or tools. Non-ergonomic movement of operators. Lack of motion study. Lack of 5s System. |
| Over Processing | Non-value-added activities in manufacturing or business process. A complex process that leads to overprocessing or over-documentation work. |
| Defects | Cost of Non-Conformity. Inspection of cost of reworked goods or product, retesting of repaired product, cost involved in handling non-conforming goods. |
| Over Production | Push system production where supply increased as compared to demand resulting in excessive finished product inventory and blocking of capital. Lack of Kanban system. |
| Inventory | Storing raw materials or semi-finished goods in a larger quantity than required. Poor forecasting. |
Waiting:
The following graphics help you to understand the waste incurred due to waiting time at the airport. For international travel, you need to be present at least 3 hours before boarding time and for domestic travel, it’s 2 hours before boarding time. Every passenger has to follow these norms and lose precious time in non-value-added activities i.e. waiting.
Waiting time between two essential processes is simply transformed in to non-value-added activities.
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