Lean is a management approach, which directs and limits the expenditure of production resources solely and only in achieving goals, which create added value for the end customer. In order for Lean to be implemented as an approach in a production and it becomes World Class, everyone must change their way of thinking. We call this way of thinking Lean Thinking.

Often, companies waste resources to achieve goals, which do not create added value. That's how they incur losses, which reflect in low productivity, aggravated cost and unstable quality. This makes the control system difficult and error-prone, and they lead to more losses and more performance problems, cost and quality. Companies enter a vicious circle - instead of creating added value for the customer, they struggle with problems, which may be challenging, but they do not make the product more marketable.

Lean analyzes what of it, which we do, it matters to the customer. Thus, resource costs are divided into two groups - useful costs, adding value to the customer and excess costs, which prevent value from being added. These are the so-called. "losses from excess" and the goal of Lean is to uncover them and eliminate them, or at least limit them to reasonable levels. Redundancy attack unclogs production bottlenecks, reduces conditional fixed costs, shortens the production cycle (hence the delivery times and the financial cycle) and improves the yield of production resources and liquidity of working capital.

In production, the types of excess mentioned below are most often observed, known as the 7 losses. Lean thinking allows us to detect these losses and subsequently reduce them.

Overproduction – we produce more than we can possibly sell or such products, for which there is no demand. In both cases, we produce a product, without being sure, that there is a client, who wants it and will buy it. This is how we use up resources, which are not redeemable. Overproduction is considered the greatest of the seven losses.

Wastes

Movement – ​​excess movement of materials, semi-finished products, product ready, people, tools, documents and what not. Excess movement makes work difficult, makes it more tiring, more time-consuming, etc. And the customer is not inclined to pay for excess traffic.

Transport - cross, overlapping or counterflows in production, redundant transportation of the product from one process to the next, excess transportation to and from the processing site, or else something is still out of place or not located near the place of its use. The customer does not want to pay for excess shipping.

Downtime - major losses from freezing working capital in production are due to downtime and waiting - before and after technological operations, inter-shop and inter-operational stocks, the man waits for the machine to release, the machine waits for the person to charge it, a section is waiting for another section to submit work to it, the workers wait for the boss to tell them what to do, production stops due to lack of materials or due to repair of damaged machines. The customer does not want to pay for the excess stays.

Inventory - machines, tools and fixtures, which we rarely or never use, plus so placed along the process, that they hinder him and block him. Process bottlenecks can also occur due to congestion of machine work areas and transport corridors with products awaiting processing, suspended batches, currently unnecessary tools and fixtures or overflowing marriage insulators. This brings no value to the Customer and he does not want to pay.

Overprocessing – there may be excess auxiliaries in production, finishing or corrective operations, due to quirks in the technology itself. Or the technology is not stabilized and leads to marriage and repeated operations. The customer doesn't want to pay for it, that we still haven't learned to do things right the first time.

Marriage is every product, which did not become eligible the first time. Oftentimes, marriage results in wasted processing time and, as a result, re-use of materials. Marriage usually results from the realization of the remaining losses.

Production redundancies hamper adaptability, increase fixed and direct costs, reduce productivity and quality, cause discomfort in the workplace. With an overpriced and low-quality product, we cannot pursue upward customer satisfaction. As a result, the general picture of production and commercial efficiency is deteriorating sharply.

The Lean approach makes it easier for production and functional managers and specialists to target such solutions, which lead to an increase in added value for the customer. And "fighting fires" will decrease, because excesses are the main cause of "fires".

The idea of ​​Lean was born from giants of thought such as Adam Smith, Frederick Taylor, Henry Ford and Edward Deming. It was put into practice by the creator of the Toyota factories - Kiichiro Toyoda. Taichi Ono developed the approach under the name TPS(ToyotaProductionSystem), subsequently gained notoriety as Lean.

Thinking Lean, we must aim high, namely 0 losses, 0 incidents, 0 environmental pollution, etc. n., but as Taichi Ono says: "There is no factory in the world, who has achieved these goals and most likely never will, but our pursuit of them produces the results".

Let's fight together for a change in mindset and walk the long road to World Class Manufacturing.