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32 ESSENTIAL LEAN TOOLS
Infographic Transcription
Lean manufacturing—often simply “lean,” for short—has exploded in recent years as companies worldwide work to improve efficiency, increase profits, and create a safer work environment.
Here are some of the most popular lean tools—and how companies have used them effectively throughout their facilities.
1. 5S System
WHAT IT IS
The 5S System offers a systematic approach for rooting out inefficiencies, improving organization, and implementing standardized practices throughout a facility.
5S gets its name from five Japanese words that act as guiding principles for the system:
- Seiri: Tidiness
- Seiton: Orderliness
- Seiso: Cleanliness
- Seiketsu: Standardization
- Shitsuke: Discipline
Numerous companies have used 5S effectively: Boeing uses a variation of 5S to simplify operations and improve efficiency, while the Harley-Davidson Motor Company relies on 5S to save money through improved safety and streamlined manufacturing.
(Example bin labels shown)
- Widgets
- Gizmos
- Dohickeys
- Bobbles
- Whatsits
- Doodads
HOW IT HELPS
Employers should save time and improve organization, and employees may become more efficient as they find tools more quickly, stay safer in organized work areas, and improve efficiency through standard procedures.
Kaizen RELIES on employee suggestions for improvement
WHAT IT IS
Also known as Continuous Improvement, Kaizen offers a strategy for finding and implementing regular improvement throughout the manufacturing process.
Popularized by Toyota®, Kaizen relies on employees at all levels making suggestions for improvements throughout a company—and subsequently communicating those ideas to upper management. As those suggestions are analyzed and approved, companies can cut waste and improve morale.
HOW IT HELPS
Employees feel more engaged, invested, connected, and committed. When Toyota implemented Kaizen at one of its U.S. plants, the auto maker received more than 75,000 suggestions from 7,000 employees for improving the manufacturing process; Toyota subsequently implemented 99% of those ideas.
WHAT IT IS
Kanban—translated from Japanese, “visual cards”—controls the flow of materials within a supply chain. Most commonly, Kanban uses cards and other visual signals to adjust inventory or communicate tasks in response to customer demand.
Spotify* uses Kanban to schedule programming tasks, visually review a department’s workload, and prioritize work requests as they are received. In turn, the company can quickly analyze a team’s capacity for new projects and make more accurate forecasts going forward.
(To Do / Doing / Done cards shown)
- “Order Card” 看板
HOW IT HELPS
At its core, Kanban is designed to reduce waste and maximize efficiency. Depending on how many cards are used in a particular process, Kanban can tell manufacturers when to cut back on production—or, when cards are moving quickly through a workflow—ramp up productivity.
WHAT IT IS
Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is a wide-ranging philosophy that promotes proactive and preventative maintenance.
The Eight Pillars of TPM offer techniques for implementing the strategy:
- Autonomous Maintenance: Operators keep tabs on their equipment and work areas
- Process and Machine Improvement: Operators report information to team leaders; that data is then used to prioritize maintenance and improvements.
- Preventative Maintenance: Operators and team leaders work together to establish maintenance tasks and schedules.
- Early Management of New Equipment: Based on maintenance reports and the equipment lifecycle, team leaders take proactive approaches to maintenance.
- Process Quality Management: Operators and team leaders alike share responsibility for maintenance, creating buy-in from all involved employees.
- Education and Training: Machine operators are continually educated on maintenance, safety, and proper usage.
- Safety and Sustained Success: Employees throughout a facility are encouraged to focus on safety and, where applicable, ongoing machine maintenance.
HOW IT HELPS
At its core, TPM aims to save on maintenance costs and reduce machine downtime—which, in turn, increases productivity, cuts down on defects, and improves employee morale.
WHAT IT IS
Designed for workers on the plant floor, Andon offers a real-time visual feedback system that shows the status of a machine or process—and alerts others when and where assistance is required. Most commonly, Andon uses a combination of lights and sounds to communicate status updates, issues, and challenges.
HOW IT HELPS
Popular on assembly lines (including those run by Toyota and Nissan), Andon communicates problems as they arise and allows employees to alter the production process, as necessary. By empowering employees on the front lines, Andon keeps workers engaged with their tasks—all while working as an effective quality control system.
WHAT IT IS
Roughly translated as “The Real Place” in Japanese, Gemba encourages facility management to connect with employees wherever they work, whether on a plant floor or the assembly line, and find problems and sources of waste.
This is most commonly done through a regularly-scheduled Gemba Walk to assess a plant’s productivity and learn about ongoing issues. Employers should use the following five rules for conducting a successful Gemba Walk:
- Have a specific purpose. Know why you’re taking the Gemba Walk, and have an idea of what you’re looking for.
- Be familiar with the area you’re visiting. Know what goes on, how it happens, and the purpose it serves before starting the Gemba Walk.
- Understand the overall process. You should be familiar with the machinery in place, the tasks it facilitates, and where it fits into the broader manufacturing process.
- Correctly understand what you’re seeing. Talk with workers to see if what you’re seeing is an accurate reflection of the typical process. Are there defects slowing employees down, glaring inefficiencies, or other problems that need to be addressed?
- Know what to ask. Have a list of questions to better understand the work: What is the task, who performs each task, where is a task taking place, when is the task done, why is it being done, and how is it being performed?
HOW IT HELPS
Gemba encourages a deep, thorough, and expansive understanding of manufacturing inefficiencies and issues through first-hand observation and discussions with key employees.
WHAT IT IS
Heijunka is a form of production scheduling that encourages a steady, predictable flow of small-batch manufacturing, rather than less frequent, larger production processes for goods and components.
Toyota® uses Heijunka to help schedule manufacturing, with each step reflecting a different model’s consumer demand.
HOW IT HELPS
The smaller-scale focus on production improves efficiency at all levels of the manufacturing process. Certain items won’t become obsolete before they’re needed at later stages of the manufacturing process, and those later steps won’t be slowed down by manufacturing delays earlier in the production cycle. Meanwhile, employers won’t have to find room for excess inventory and can account for productivity as demand for a product fluctuates.
Heijunka =
STEADY PRODUCTION
WHAT IT IS
Rather than focus on the day-to-day actions within an organization, Hoshin Kanri takes a big-picture look at a company’s direction by ensuring its goals align with the strategies outlined by middle management and the everyday work being done within a facility.
The top-down approach emphasizes steady communication for explaining visions, developing and implementing policy, and receiving feedback.
Printer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard began using Hoshin Kanri in the 1970s to ensure workers performed tasks that contributed directly to the company’s broader mission and established goals.
HOW IT HELPS
Without Hoshin Kanri, it becomes exponentially more difficult to implement other lean tools. The practice helps ensure that all employees within a company understand the organization’s vision and march in lockstep toward a common goal. In doing so, organizations may eliminate wasteful processes and tasks that don’t contribute toward the larger vision.
COMMON GOAL
9. IshikawaWHAT IT IS
Ishikawa Diagrams (also called Cause-and-Effect Diagrams) help identify the root cause of an inefficiency or problem within a facility.
The easiest, most common way to create an Ishikawa Diagram is to be guided by asking the question, “Why?” to better understand the heart of an issue. Each answer lays the foundation for the next iteration of “Why?” This is commonly referred to as the 5 Whys, so named because it has been observed to take roughly five instances of asking “Why?” to find the root cause of an issue.
HOW IT HELPS
Ishikawa Diagrams help uncover potential problems within a system and can help administrators understand how a broader system works, as well as its impact on other parts of the system.
5 WHYS
Root Cause
Effect
Problem
WHY?
WHY? WHY?
WHY? WHY?
WHAT IT IS
There may be few more important ideas within the lean process than that of Muda, or wastefulness within the manufacturing process. Every lean tool, in one way or another, is designed to eliminate waste.
Specifically, lean is focused on ridding the workplace of seven wastes, broken down as follows:
- Overproduction: When items are produced before they are needed
- Inventory: When too many or too few items are kept on hand
- Waiting: When people and machines wait for another part of the process to complete
- Motion: When people and machines engage in unnecessary, wasteful movements
- Transportation: When items or parts are moved unnecessarily or inefficiently throughout the process
- Reworking: When human error causes processes to be repeated
- Overprocessing: When more work goes into a product or process than is required by the customer
Eliminate 7 Wastes
HOW IT HELPS
Eliminating muda is the heart of lean. With less waste, employees can be more productive, thrive in a safer work environment, and quickly understand standardized procedures and policies. In all, eliminating waste improves a company’s bottom line, reduces downtime, and improves efficiency.
WHAT IT IS
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) provides a measuring stick for understanding the efficiency of each step in the manufacturing process. A machine or processes’ efficiency is calculated by analyzing downtime, performance, and output quality.
The OEE is then represented as a percentage, with 0 being the most inefficient score possible and 100 representing perfect production.
AVAILABILITY % × PERFORMANCE % × QUALITY % = OEE
HOW IT HELPS
Knowing a machine or processes’ OEE helps employers find inefficiencies in the production cycle, set goals for improvement, and track progress as changes are made.
WHAT IT IS
Plan, Do, Check, Act (PDCA) offers a standardized framework for problem-solving and improving efficiency.
The FOUR STEPS in the PDCA cycle are:
- Plan
A problem or inefficiency is identified, and all impacted employees work together to develop a plan for making improvements. - Do
The plan is implemented as a pilot program to study its efficacy and impacts on the broader production process. - Check
The plan’s changes and impacts are reviewed to see if further improvements can be made—and to see if any unintended consequences arose. - Act
The plan is incorporated on a wider level if it has successfully addressed the initial problem; if not, the cycle starts over at the Plan phase to account for other factors.
PDCA
The Pearl River School District in New York uses PDCA to guide its decision-making and work processes.
HOW IT HELPS
PDCA reduces confusion about how to approach, implement, analyze, and review solutions to problems—and helps facilities incorporate improvements in an efficient manner.
WHAT IT IS
Standardized Work focuses on finding best practices for an organization or process, documenting those procedures, implementing them on a wider scale, and communicating those tasks or methods to employees.
That communication is usually accomplished through visual cues that break down the best practice, the sequences for following it, where the work is done, and the specific procedures for accomplishing certain tasks.
DOCUMENT AND IMPLEMENT
BEST PRACTICES
HOW IT HELPS
Standardized Work is designed specifically to improve efficiency. The more a company develops, implements, and communicates best practices, the more efficient—and the less wasteful—its employees will be.
WHAT IT IS
A Visual Factory relies on visual communication to clearly share key information with workers.
The communication will vary among work areas within an organization, not to mention among disparate companies, depending on the needs of a specific work area or organization.
Organizations may use electronic display boards, color-coded floor marking, signs, labels, and other tools to efficiently communicate important information, such as how to operate machinery, the status of a process, where to find storage areas, and how to move throughout a facility.
HOW IT HELPS
Employees can increase productivity and efficiency when communication is clear, direct, and simple to understand.
WHAT IT IS
ABC Inventory helps a company understand the relative importance of various items throughout a production process, prioritize those items, and track inventory costs.
In short, ABC inventory ranks items into three categories:
- “A” items are the most important for an organization, each requiring more time and economic investment to ensure maximum efficiency.
- “B” items are less important and, accordingly, require less of an investment. By separating “A” and “B” items, organizations can allocate resources and make strategic decisions accordingly.
- “C” items are the least important items in a manufacturing process.
HOW IT HELPS
ABC Inventory helps companies track and prioritize their inventory more efficiently, which guides decisions around resource investment and cost-benefit analyses.
WHAT IT IS
As the name implies, a Bottleneck Analysis looks for constraints and barriers that slow down a larger production process—and develops methods that account for, remove, or otherwise mitigate that particular slowdown.
There is no single established method for conducting a full-fledged Bottleneck Analysis; rather, a company may use other lean tools (such as the 5S System—see #1 or Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle—see #12) for developing a workable framework.
HOW IT HELPS
A Bottleneck Analysis improves efficiency and productivity by locating the biggest obstacle in a process and giving employers the tools to remove that barrier.
17. Cellular Manufacturing
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