Question

What are the five tenets of lean thinking? In your own words, provide a road map for implementing lean thinking in a manufacturing or service operations

Answer 1

Following are the five tenets of lean thinking------------

1. Specify precisely what about a product or service creates value from the customer's perspective.

2. Identify, study, and improve the value stream of the process for each product or service.

3. Ensure that flow within a process is simple, smooth, and error-free, thereby avoiding waste.

4. Produce only what is pulled by the customer.

5. Strive for perfection.

The road map for implementation of lean thinking should begin by identifying the value that the customer desires. The current state of the process should be identified in the next step. A value stream map is drawn describing the overall operations. This helps in eliminating the waste from the customer's point of view. The next step is to minimize the setup or changeover times and redesign the process to achieve a constant flow through the system. Then the process should be pulled from the customer's viewpoint, based on the customer rate of demand . A lean thinking approach should strive for continuous improvement to meet the changing customer requirements.