Lean manufacturing
principle
Lean manufacturing works on a simple principle.
In one word it is based on seeing the bigger picture. At least
organization must move away from departmentalized thinking and
must move towards seeing the organization as one entity.
We shall go little in to details of this concept. What is the
benefit of seeing the organization as one entity? Why we should
do this. I will give you the answer. From the customer point of
view, you are not separate set of departments. You are a single
organization. So it doesn’t matter how well your each department
works. What does matter tough is how well you perform as an organization.
If we take a look from an internal point of view,
at the end of the day it only matters how well your entire organization
has performed. For an example, even though your design department
is superb, it will mean nothing if your manufacturing department
is not doing well. This is why lean manufacturing treats sub optimization
as an enemy.
Many manufacturers realized the importance of
lean manufacturing principle of looking into the bigger picture
as even more important in today’s world. Lean manufacturers
are going out from their original manufacturing premises. Lean
manufacturing is becoming lean enterprise by treating its customers
and suppliers as partners. This gives the extra edge in today’s
cost and time competitive markets. This will make the organization
strong in all three conventional competition points. They are
Price, Quality and the Delivery. Lean enterprise owners now can
deliver high quality products quickly, with low price.
But in today’s world there are few more
competition points. Social responsibility and the environmental
friendliness are among them. These aspects are now not external
from the organization. Many lean enterprise owners use the principle
of lean manufacturing to accommodate these into their systems.
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