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Lean Office FAQ: The Origin of Lean 2. Where does the word Lean come from? 3. What is the difference in Lean Production vs. mass production? 4. Why is manufacturing so innovative when it comes to performance improvement? 5. What is the difference in Lean Production vs. Lean Office? 6. How long have manufacturers used Lean techniques? 7. What is the difference between just-in-time (JIT) and Lean Production?
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1.
Who invented Lean? Lean concepts were first developed by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota starting in the early 1950's. These concepts have been fine tuned over the years and have become known as the Toyota Production System. As late as 1987 other manufacturers outside of Japan were not aware of the power of the Toyota Production System. Until then it was a mystery how the Japanese were able to produce automobiles at such high quality and low cost. It's only been 15 years that manufacturers around the world began to understand the power of the Toyota Production System. Now, in that relatively short period time, manufacturers have either discovered Lean... or they've discovered that they're rapidly loosing business. 2. Where does the word Lean come from? The word "Lean" is a term coined by John Krafcik of MIT because it uses less of everything compared to mass production – half the human effort, half of the space, half the design hours, half the investment in tools, half the work in progress, and many fewer defects.
3.
What is the difference in
Lean Production vs. mass production?
In manufacturing, mass production tends to focus on highly specialized (and expensive) machines that have automated a majority of the production process. The role of people and processes in this environment is to keep these expensive machines as busy as possible, in part to justify their high cost. The result is a high degree of specialization with batches and queues to insure the machines stay busy. Mass production is most efficient when large quantities of the same product are produced all at once. Lean Production avoids the high cost of specialized machines (called monuments), and balances people, processes, and tools for maximum flexibility. Lean Production enables manufacturers to cost effectively produce fewer highly customized products in less time with fewer defects. If mass production signaled the end of the craftsman era, Lean Production is signaling the end of the mass production era. It is that important. 4. Why is manufacturing so innovative when it comes to performance improvement? Manufacturers can see their processes. Because their processes are right in front of them, they think about process everyday. When something is not working it becomes very apparent. Because of this they are constantly attempting to improve their processes. In an office environment, processes are out of sight; and generally out of mind. Most organizations have very little visibility to the day-to-day problems caused by misaligned processes. Look out over a floor of offices and cubicles and try to determine where the bottlenecks are. 5. What is the difference in Lean Production vs. Lean Office? Lean was originally developed for the manufacturing environment. Many of the techniques used in Lean Production directly apply to the office environment, but there are differences. The primary difference is how value is created. On a manufacturing shop floor most value creation is performed by machines and there is a flow of material from one value adding activity to the next. In the office most value creation is performed by people and there is a flow of information from one value adding activity to the next. People are not the same as machines:
Information flow is not the same as material flow:
Because of the factors listed above, it is important to modify the techniques used by Lean Production for the office environment. Although the concepts behind Lean Office remain the same their implementation must be tuned to the needs of people and information flows. 6. How long have manufacturers used Lean techniques? Lean was first developed by Toyota starting in 1950 under the name the Toyota Production System (TPS). Even today Toyota continues to improve TPS. Elements of what Toyota was doing with TPS started to leak out such as just-in-time production and kanban. (For definitions, please see the Lean Office Glossary) But these were just individual elements TPS. By themselves they were helpful, but taken alone they do not provide the same benefits that can be achieved by the powerful combination of techniques that make up TPS/Lean. It wasn't until the 1990's that manufacturers outside of Japan began to realize the depth of techniques that made up TPS and began to apply them. The results were dramatic. Over the last 15 years the majority of manufacturers have adopted Lean Production on their shop floors. It's only been in the last 5 years that these techniques have begun to be used in their front office environments as well. 7. What is the difference between just-in-time (JIT) and Lean Production? Just-in-time (JIT) is defined by the Lean Office Glossary as an activity of a value stream occurring just prior to its being needed, with the assets needed to produce the value of that activity becoming available just prior to the activity being performed. JIT is an important element of Lean Production, but it is just one element of many. One of the basic tenants of Lean Production is continuous flow or the constant flow of work from one activity to the next with no interruptions or downtime. JIT is one technique to achieve continuous flow; there are others. For example, Theory of Constraints, takt time, and pull systems all contribute to the design of continuous flow systems.
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