Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management
Total Quality Management
ASSIGNMENT ON
LEAN MANUFACTURING Lean Manufacturing is a manufacturing system and philosophy that was originally developed by Toyota and is now used by many manufacturers throughout the world. At Toyota the system is referred to as the Toyota Production System. Other manufacturers have adapted the system to meet their own needs and assigned a proprietary name to it, such as Delphi Automotive's Delphi Manufacturing System. Therefore the term Lean Manufacturing is a more generic term and refers to the general principals and further developments of Lean. The term Lean is very apt because in Lean Manufacturing the emphasis is to cut out the "fat" or waste in the manufacturing process. Waste is defined as anything that does not add value to the customer. It could also be defined as anything the customer is unwilling to pay for. For example, if you order a shirt to be custom made, it may take 6 weeks. However the actual time the tailors or seamstresses are working on the shirt is only 5 hours. The rest of the time is taken up by such things as material ordering, waiting between processes and inefficient shipping practices. This extra time does not add value to you, the customer. As Lean Manufacturing principals are applied to the shirt-making process, one would see a reduction in delivery time from 6 to 5 to 4 weeks and even less. The ideal shirt-making operation would be streamlined to give you, the customer, what you want, when you want it at the lowest possible cost within the least amount of time. Though they may not call it Lean, the "Eyeglasses in About an Hour" companies have applied many Lean principles to their operation. What used to take weeks is now done in about an hour, adding value to the customer. It is no surprise that these operations have opened up all over the country. What was once thought of as impossible speed of delivery is now commonplace. Applying Lean Manufacturing principles gives manufacturers these types of results on a routine basis.
THE 7 WASTES IN LEAN MANUFACTURING Waste elimination is one of the most effective ways to increase the profitability of any business. Processes either add value or waste to the production of a good or service. The seven wastes originated in Japan, where waste is known as muda." "The seven wastes" is a tool to further categorize muda and was originally developed by Toyotas Chief Engineer Taiichi Ohno as the core of the Toyota Production System, also known as Lean Manufacturing. To eliminate waste, it is important to understand exactly what waste is and where it exists. While products significantly differ between factories, the typical wastes found in manufacturing environments are quite similar. For each waste, there is a strategy to reduce or eliminate its effect on a company, thereby improving overall performance and quality. The seven wastes consist of: 1. Overproduction 2. Waiting 3. Transporting 4. Inappropriate processing 5. Unnecessary inventory 6. Unnecessary motion 7. Defects
1. Overproduction. Simply put, overproduction is to manufacture an item before it is actually required. Overproduction is highly costly to a manufacturing plant because it prohibits the smooth flow of materials and actually degrades quality and productivity. The Toyota Production System is also referred to as Just in Time (JIT) because every item is made just as it is needed. Overproduction manufacturing is referred to as Just in Case. This creates excessive lead times, results in high storage costs, and makes it difficult to detect defects. The simple solution to overproduction is turning off the tap; this requires a lot of courage because the problems that overproduction is hiding will be revealed. The concept is to schedule and produce only what can be immediately sold/shipped and improve machine changeover/set-up capability. Often caused by quality problems, a company know that it will lose a number of units along the production process so produces extra to make sure that the customer order is satisfied. These kind of issue can be tackled using mistake proofing methods (Pokayoke) and by understanding the machine process capabilities of the production equipment. Statistical process control (SPC) will also help monitor production outputs and give warning of problems before they occur. If the reason a company is overproducing is because of small orders and economic batch sizes then Setup reduction techniques such as SMED can help. If a company can reduce its changeover time then it is then able to produce smaller batches economically. Overproduction has been said by some to be the worst of the 7 wastes as it encompasses the rest of the wastes, often the main driving force for JIT (Just in time) systems. 2. Waiting Whenever goods are not moving or being processed, the waste of waiting occurs. Typically more than 99% of a product's life in traditional batch-and-queue manufacture will be spent waiting to be processed. Much of a products lead time is tied up in waiting for the next operation; this is usually because material flow is poor, production runs are too long, and distances between work centers are too great. Goldratt (Theory of Constraints) has stated many times that one hour lost in a bottleneck process is one hour lost to the entire factorys output, which can never be recovered. Linking processes together so that one feeds directly into the next can dramatically reduce waiting.
Products waiting around in factories either as finished goods or work in progress (WIP) another major cause of waste. WIP is commonly caused by producing large batch sizes where again SMED techniques can help. Concentrating on keeping bottle neck processes going are also a good way of reducing WIP, the book The Goal by Eliyahu M. Goldratt has a lot to say on this and has been found to be very useful by many manufacturing managers. 3. Transporting Transporting product between processes is a cost incursion which adds no value to the product. Excessive movement and handling cause damage and are an opportunity for quality to deteriorate. Material handlers must be used to transport the materials, resulting in another organizational cost that adds no customer value. Transportation can be difficult to reduce due to the perceived costs of moving equipment and processes closer together. Furthermore, it is often hard to determine which processes should be next to each other. Mapping product flows can make this easier to visualize. Factory layouts can often be the fundamental cause of excess transportation. When appropriate, re-laying out the machines within a factory from a functional to a cellular layout has been found by many companies to help not just reduce transportation waste but also reduce WIP and waiting. Excess inventory levels can also lead to wasted handling. 4. Inappropriate Processing Often termed as using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, many organizations use expensive high precision equipment where simpler tools would be sufficient. This often results in poor plant layout because preceding or subsequent operations are located far apart. In addition they encourage high asset utilization (over-production with minimal changeovers) in order to recover the high cost of this equipment. Toyota is famous for their use of low-cost automation, combined with immaculately maintained, often older machines. Investing in smaller, more flexible equipment where possible; creating manufacturing cells; and combining steps will greatly reduce the waste of inappropriate processing. Rework is a typical example of over processing as discussed earlier reducing the root cause of the quality problem is solution eliminating rework. Techniques such as 5 whys, SPC and mistake proofing (Pokayoke) are available to help identify and eliminate causes of quality defects.
5. Unnecessary Inventory Work in Progress (WIP) is a direct result of overproduction and waiting. Excess inventory tends to hide problems on the plant floor, which must be identified and resolved in order to improve operating performance. Excess inventory increases lead times, consumes productive floor space, delays the identification of problems, and inhibits communication. By achieving a seamless flow between work centers, many manufacturers have been able to improve customer service and slash inventories and their associated costs. Many companies order over and above what is required to fulfil the order, this may be due to quality problems along the production process or the often mistaken belief that is saves money by ordering larger quantities. The true cost of excess inventory levels should be carefully analysed before ordering excess raw materials simply because the purchase price is less. Tackling the root cause of the quality problems should also be a priority. 6. Unnecessary / Excess Motion This waste is related to ergonomics and is seen in all instances of bending, stretching, walking, lifting, and reaching. These are also health and safety issues, which in todays litigious society are becoming more of a problem for organizations. Jobs with excessive motion should be analyzed and redesigned for improvement with the involvement of plant personnel. Simple Good Housekeeping is a very effective way of reducing wasted movement by men and materials. 5S is a technique used by many companies to focus effort on keeping the workplace tidy with unused materials and machines disposed off so as not to create unnecessary clutter and therefore searching. Re-laying out the factory can also help reduce motion waste. 7. Defects Having a direct impact to the bottom line, quality defects resulting in rework or scrap are a tremendous cost to organizations. Associated costs include quarantining inventory, re-inspecting, rescheduling, and capacity loss. In many organizations the total cost of defects is often a significant percentage of total manufacturing cost. Through employee involvement and Continuous Process Improvement (CPI), there is a huge opportunity to reduce defects at many facilities. In the latest edition of the Lean Manufacturing classic Lean Thinking, Underutilization of Employees has been added as an eighth waste to Ohnos original seven wastes. Organizations employ their staff for their nimble
fingers and strong muscles but forget they come to work everyday with a free brain. It is only by capitalizing on employees' creativity that organizations can eliminate the other seven wastes and continuously improve their performance. Many changes over recent years have driven organizations to become world class organizations or Lean Enterprises. The first step in achieving that goal is to identify and attack the seven wastes. As Toyota and other world-class organizations have come to realize, customers will pay for value added work, Again caused by quality related issues. If you were to record all of the non-value added activities carried out in a typical manufacturing company do not be surprised to find out that 99% of all activities carried out are non-value adding, even the best manufacturers manage 96%. The elimination of waste not just reducing it is a vital component of increasing competitiveness of your organisation.but never for waste.