Question

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Q. Write a history of lean manufacturing in 1000 words. Support your answer with references.

Answer 1

Lean manufacturing refers to the process of eliminating wastes from a manufacturing system without affecting the productivity. It focuses on activity that add values to the product and tries to implement evenness of work throughout the production process. It focuses on the elimination of the following types of losses

• Defect Loss
• Overproduction Loss
• Waiting Loss
• Non-utilization of resource
• Transportation loss
• Inventory Loss
• Movement Loss
• Extra Production Loss

Lean Manufacturing evolved from Ford Assembly Line Production system and Toyota Production System which acts as benchmark for many manufacturing industries to control their defect and increase their productivity. Lean concept began as early as 1890 where F Taylor began studying working methods used at factories and proposed many methods to improve efficiency. But it got rejected and there were many criticism against him. Then during the 1910's Henry Ford successfully implemented the ford assembly line and the efficiency increased drastically. However there was some drawbacks like model mix and inventory management. Later after the world war II during 1953 Toyota changed the way manufacturing was done, the revolution came in the form of Just-In-Time concept which focus mainly on Inventory management and waste reduction. It gave birth to concept like pull system, Kan-Ban, and Kaizen. Even today these concepts are still being followed. Although there have been slight modification based on the vision and mission of the organization but the concept remain the same.

Today almost all manufacturing system are following Lean and Six-Sigma principles, the common example is Toyota Group which implements Lean in its every process. An example could be considered for the year 2010 in which there was a supplier faulty part received and it got into the production line. Because lean concept was implemented, the defect was traced and all the parts were replaced before causing major loss to the company.