Implementation of Lean

Question: Provide a critical discussion on the implementation of lean which addresses the following questions: 1) Is there a best way to implement lean? (50%) 2) Are all organisations suitable for lean implementation? (50%) You are expected to provide appropriate examples to illustrate your answers. Answer: Introduction According to (_) for designing an efficient production system the management of any organisation should address three major issues namely removal of production wastes, reduction of waiting time and management of inventory levels. For effective management of the operations, the organisations generally adopt three types of production systems namely Just-in-Time approach (JIT), Toyota Production System (TPS) and Lena production management. The JIT focuses on reduction of wastes and control of inventory by supplying inventory as per the order of the customers. The TPS on the contrary emphasises on continuous improvement of the production process, improves the working standards and evolves a situation of mutual workplace respect among the organisation. Lena management is the combination of TPS and JIT and along with that lean operations aims to supply the products with zero defects and zero waste levels. At present lean management is being used by all types of organisations including heal th care (NHS), manufacturing (Ford and Toyota), services ( ABN-Amro) and computer manufacturing companies (Dell). The assignment here focuses on the analysis of suitability of lean and JIT in all types of organisations. Further, the assignment will also focus on the analysis of the best method in which lean can be implemented within these organisations. Background of Lean management (_) stated that Lean management aims to remove the wastes and process that do not add any value to the product. The current implementation of lean management had originated from the Toyota Production system where the company used the JIT approach for production of waste free products. The success of the TPS and JIT in Toyota made lean management famous among the other manufacturing companies. Unlike the American automotive industry, Toyota encouraged employees to be a part of the production process. With the use of the lean management, Toyota had developed set of procedures that reduced the machine setup time and changeovers. Before the implementation of lean by Toyota, during 1915, Ford Motor Corporation adopted the lean manufacturing for development of the mass manufacturing system. Toyotas adoption of lean was based on elimination of three major types of wastes namely Muri (Overburden), Mura (production process inconsistency) and Muda (elimination of production waste). The popularity of lean has provoked the different sectors namely the health care, the service industries and the computer manufacturing companies to adopt lean within their management process. (_) stated that the healthcare organisations like NHS adopted lean for reduction of excessive motion within the hospital floors, over production, reduction of patient waiting time and reduction of defects like hospital conditions and patient conditions. Best process of lean implementation Lean strategy is on demand in the industry of manufacturing and it involves a series of activities for the minimization of waste and allows NVA or the Non Value Added operations from the production, product design and product relation and factory management for the improvement of the value added processes. There are numbers of companies are there who have been adopted lean the strategies with the growing trend and flow of time. As per the company requirements there are numbers of lean strategies have been adapted by numbers of companies so far. The main focus goes when there is over production, numbers of defects that have been identified so far, weaken inventory system, lots of waiting time, taking too much of transposition cost, huge amount of processing over head. Henceforth, to eliminate the failure behind the lean practices and make it effective it is required to make the effective implementation of desired methodology there should be numbers of testing before the implementation of a particular lean strategy. There are three key principles behind the implementation of lean strategy, those are- value identification, waste elimination, proper flow of work within the organization. While values are concerned, it is required to identify the customer defined value. It is also required to optimize the value stream so that it can create the utmost situation for the flow of business processes across the organization. Even by generating a demand pull will allow synchronize the customer demand and let information flow across the organization. On the other hand perfection of each of the products, services is require to satisfy customer as well as to maintain the Suitability of lean implementation in different organisations (_) stated that concept of lean implementation is applicable to all organisations since the aim of lean is to improve the production process and add quality to the products along with customisation of the products. However, (_) stated that implementation of lean management comprises of various challenges on the part of the organisation, hence it is difficult for all types of organisation to implement lean principles within their production system. (_) stated that lean manufacturing includes elimination of the inventory storage time with the help of implementation of JIT approach. However, for the JIT approach to successfully function, the organisations are required to co ordinate with the suppliers constantly. For companies like Coca Cola, the adoption of JIT will put the company into trouble because Coke operates on a global basis and the suppliers of Coke are scattered over different countries. Thus, it is not possible for the company to contact with the suppliers and order as per the demand of the customers. Further (_) supported the argument stating that in manufacturing companies like Nike, Toyota and Ford, the identification of wastes is a relatively easy method. However, in case of service industries like financial service companies, the identification of waste is very difficult.