Henry Ford’s assembly line system was a revolutionary development that laid the foundation for mass manufacturing of products in an efficient and profitable manner. Over the decades, job rotation and teamwork practices were included to make it easier for workers to perform monotonous jobs.
The Toyota Production System went a step ahead and implemented policies aimed at eliminating waste, improving quality at the source, and promoting improvement in the manufacturing process. The high-efficiency world of assembly line manufacturing was integrated with the quality and efficiency-centric world of individual manufacturing.
Introduction to Lean Manufacturing
Lean industrial manufacturing, as the phrase suggests, consists of approaches, strategies, and tactics designed to boost efficiency, enhance quality, and improve responsiveness towards the requirements of customers. The primary focus of this strategy is to reduce waste, of tangible and intangible resources, to manufacture quality products in an efficient and economical manner.
Industrial manufacturing services seeking to go lean cannot treat it as a one-time activity with a fixed goal. Rather, this concept is a process that is designed to encourage continuous refinement in all aspects and facets of manufacturing in a holistic manner.
Key Factors of a Lean Manufacturing Strategy
The biggest challenge involved in implementing such a manufacturing strategy is that it can easily end up as a PR exercise that fails to create real and sustainable change in the organization. The following factors play a key role in determining the success or failure of such a strategy.
- Customer-Centric Approach with Defined Goals
The shift to a leaner manufacturing strategy often fails because changes are introduced without considering the requirements of customers. At the end of the day, the changes should provide better value for money for the customer. Otherwise, the new strategy will just be a theoretical exercise that offers no real benefits.
- Proactive Employee Engagement
A top-down approach where instructions flow from the top and employees are just expected to obey them will not result in real and sustainable change. The change in strategy must be done on the basis of inputs received from employees.
- Alignment of Macro and Micro Strategies
It is easy to talk about Just-In-Time manufacturing at a macro level. However, the real impact will be felt only when changes are made at the micro level as well. For this, the long-term strategy should be in sync with short-term tactics and production practices.
- Frequent Customization
Low-waste and efficient manufacturing can never be a stagnant or passive exercise. Even after 50 years, Toyota is still in the process of fine tuning its production techniques. Hence, frequent, flexible, and dynamic customization is a must. The changes must be based on free-flow of feedback from all stakeholders participating in the production process.
- Access to Quality and Accurate Metrics
Without clear and precise data, any change in the manufacturing strategy will just be a short-term exercise. Automating the process of collection of metrics and making them available throughout the organization through enterprise-level cloud solutions can facilitate informed decision making.
- Interactive Communication
The success or failure of a new industrial strategy will depend on the pace at which the organization adapts to the changed scenario. Clear, free, and open communication is the foundation of a switch to a strategy that seeks to combine efficient production with economical and high-quality practices.
Change, even from bad to good, does not occur without challenges and difficulties. If you don’t want the time, effort, and money invested in IT to go waste, then it is important to focus on key factors that determine the overall impact of the shift to the new strategy.
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