Disadvantages Of Lean Manufacturing

Lean Manufacturing system pursues optimum streamlining throughout the entire system by the elimination of waste (non-value added/ waste) and aims to build quality into the process while recognizing the importance of cost reduction.

One obstacle is the perception that the use of lean manufacturing solutions is, at best, nothing more than a trend. In addition, at worst, a brief craze. It is often observed as nothing more than a repackaging of fundamental industrial engineering principles dressed up in new clothes, and flaunted in new terms to appeal to a new industry. Lean manufacturing is sometimes seen in many industries as a collection of techniques, known to be effective in the auto industry, which some people are now trying to impose on a completely different industry. This means that perceptions have to be changed.

Lean manufacturing, lean enterprise, or lean production, often simply, "Lean," is a production practice that considers the expenditure of resources for any goal other than the creation of value for the end customer to be wasteful, and thus a target for elimination. Working from the perspective of the customer who consumes

Lean Manufacturing seeks to produce high output with low inventory. Lean Manufacturing was originally known as the Toyota production system invented by Sakichi Toyoda. The whole purpose is to lower waste and increase profit and output. This paper will discuss the history of lean manufacturing Lean manufacturing and the transition and steps involved with Just-In-time manufacturing. Lean manufacturing defines waste as anything that absorbs resources but creates no value. So what is considered waste? The main concepts of Just-In-Time manufacturing are to eliminate waste and excess inventory stocks. Toyota was the developer of these techniques, a lot of Toyotas concepts were derived from Henry Ford’s methods.

Principles of lean thinking have been broadly accepted by many manufacturing operations and have been applied successfully across many. Different authors define it distinctively. Lean manufacturing is most frequently associated with the elimination of seven important wastes to ameliorate the effects of variability in supply, processing time or demand defined it as a philosophy of manufacturing that focuses on delivering the highest quality product on time and at the lowest cost. Worley (2004) defined it as the systematic removal of waste by all members of the organization from all areas of the value stream. Briefly, it is called lean as it uses less, or the minimum of everything required to produce a

Most people wouldn’t know what Lean Manufacturing was if they hadn’t either learned about it or use it at work. Lean manufacturing is a way to eliminate waste and maximize customer value. Delivering the right product, in the right quantity, with the right quantity, at the exact time the customer needs it and at the lowest cost possible is the main goal of lean manufacturing. With lean manufacturing you can have benefits such as reduced lead times, improved quality, improved on-time deliveries, less inventory, less space, less human effort, lower costs, and increased profitability.

Lean originally originated from Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) (McCarthy, 2015) in the early 1900’s however it wasn’t until the Toyota family introduced the Toyota Production System (TPS) into their company manufacturing operations that it began to gain recognition. In the 1950’s, Toyota first implemented quality measures within the production lines process and hence the initial stages of continuous improvement. Taiichi Ono, who was the executive vice president, developed and implemented the renowned Toyota Production System (TPS) after the Second World War as a means of producing a highly effective and efficient manufacturing line for their products. Ono took great inspiration from Henry Ford’s early lean concepts and applied it to meet the demand of their own Japanese market. This built the seeds of TPS, which today is better known as lean manufacturing (Womack&Jones, 1996).

As usual, every theory implemented has its own limitation. For lean thinking, it can help manufacturing industry to achieve in minimizing the waste activity. However, lean manufacturing has not been accepted by all users. For instance, difficulty in having human coordination and the limitation in applicability outside monotonous manufacturing environments are the weaknesses that

The word term ‘’LEAN’’ was put together to describe and personalize Toyota’s business activity during the 1980’s by a research team headed by one Jim Womack, Ph.D., at MIT’s international Motor vehicle programme. According to them, the concept of ‘LEAN’ was fathered by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota. Ohno developed a contrasting approach to the mass production methods of US car firms through necessity. Later, in 1996, Jim Womack’s team espoused the five lean principles and also lean tools that they believed were the secret for Toyota’s success.

In short, lean production is essentially about receiving more from less. The point of this idea is to lessen the amount of assets or quantity, so the main focus can be utilized as a benefit for selling products and furthering assistance to customers. All while in sync, it is about making the association of the business or supply chain more productive, vaulable and more importantly effective. Lean production can be characterized from various perspectives, however the most mainstream is the “elimination of all waste and continuous improvement of productivity.” (Arnold, Chapman, 2012, p.340) Waste means something besides the base measure of hardware, parts, space, material, creation time and laborers ' time which make it completely important to increase the value of the item. Lean production is built on various effective ideas such as continuous improvement, organizing the business, and just-in-time production, which makes lean production so effective in supply chains. Lean production includes wiping out what might be wasteful and hence utilizing less energy, supplys, capacity and time. In return, this lessens costs and helps companies, such as supply chains, excel in business.

Lean manufacturing is a method of reducing waste (muda) in the manufacturing system. It also considers the waste due to overload and waste dude to over burden. Lean manufacturing also best known as Toyota production system or kaizen production system. Although the Toyota production system was introduced more than a century ago it has continue to develop over time. It was practiced by the Henry Ford for the manufacturing of Ford model T which was very successful between the years 1908 to 1920 which almost sold 2 Million cars a year. Later on it was developed by the Toyota in Japan. The main idea behind the lean manufacturing is to value the customer needs by reducing the waste and achieving good products with more value by consuming less resources. Muda is defined as the material or the activity for which the customer is not willing to pay. The main task of lean manufacturing is to identify Muda and to get rid of it. These products are created by using less human effort, less space, less capital, less time to produce high quality.

Figure 1 provides a conceptual framework of lean principles across the supply chain of the enterprise thereby yielding value to the customer. Lean thinking helps in providing flexibility to the needs of the customer. Emphasis is also put on organization of workplace which leads to more simplified work environment. Ease of access in the workplace and good ergonomic designs are some of the by-products of lean thinking methodology. Lean enterprises are more adaptable to changing market trends and also provide prompt delivery to products and services. [3]

The main aim of lean manufacturing is to limit inventory, excess workers and waste. The basic principles can be broken down into five practises – value, value stream, flow, pull and perfection [1]. It is essential to map the value that the product provides to the customer. Decisions need to be well thought-out, and implementations should be rapid. It is also important to ensure that each step provides value thus maintaining the value stream. Flow recognises the processes that ensure that the movement between the value creating steps is smooth. Lean manufacturing requires the customer to pull the output from the previous step and hence avoid overproduction. Finally, the vendor needs to continually strive to improve their quality and processes. Lean manufacturing emphasises on continuous improvement in quality and work should be stopped as soon as quality starts suffering.

When it comes to Lean Enterprise, it focuses mainly on reducing cycle time and also waste in the process. Lean Enterprise was at first developed by Toyota Motor Corporation as the Toyota Production System which became popular after 1973. The energy crisis facilitated the increasing demand at that time. “The term ‘Lean Enterprise’ is used to broaden the scope of a Lean programme from manufacturing to embrace the enterprise or entire organization”. (Alukal, 2003)

The Lean Manufacturing approach is meant to transform non-value added activity into value added activity. Lean Manufacturing technology has its impetus and focus on whole operation. Lean Manufacturing methods are inclusive of all employees and involve a major change in the embedded attitudes of the individuals that make up the organizations. In today 's highly competitive world, the Indian organizations are striving hard to