Lean

LEAN is A systematic approach to identify and eliminate waste or non-value-adding activities, through continuous improvement by flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection.

By Implementing Lean, we look at Reduction in defects, lead time, cost, inventory, space and waste. While improving productivity, Customer satisfaction, capacity, responsiveness, quality and profit

By using Lean we are looking at a systematic approach targeted at reduction of waste. We are saying anything that is not a value to the customer is a waste. Here we look at reviewing the process for any non-value adding activities, looking at establishing pull by the customer and

Creating in pursuit of perfection

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Let’s look at 5 Lean Principles

The first Specify Value in the eyes of the Customer. In Lean anything that the customer is not willing to pay for, anything that does not make thing first time right for the customer is not value. The first Lean principle would be to specify value in the eyes of the customer.

Once it is done, you are required to identify value stream and look at opportunities of elimination of waste and variation in the system.

The third is to make value flow at the pull of the customer. There are two kind of processes that we talk about in the industry one referred to as Make to Order or the second which is referred to as Make to Inventory. Pull is about Make to customer order. My process will be trigged by a customer need instead of making to inventory.

The fourth, a very important constituent, Involve, align and empower your employees

And finally, Continuously Improve Knowledge in the pursuit of Perfection

The first core lean principal is to specify value in the eyes of the customer, you should look from the eyes of the customer at what is value according to him whatever the customer is willing to pay for is the value , whatever contributes to first time rights for customer is value everything else is non value , you are required to first understand the term value before you lean a process

The second step would be to identify the Value Stream and Eliminate Waste & the Variation : identify for yourself each step of the process even the transactional one's and identify which step is value adding and which step is non value adding and identify opportunities of eliminating such wastes such non value adding activities and variation in the system

and the third Make Value Flow at the Pull of the Customer. You must look at Delivering what customer values, as and when wanted by the customer. So you must look at the value stream and try and reduce or remove the non-value adding activities reduce or remove waste look at opportunities of removal of variation in the system anything that does not add value to the customer must be looked at critically and attempts be made to remove them , while you do so in your pursuit you should look at pulling the process that is making to customer order instead of making to inventory and try and see that you can manage single piece flow instead of batch processing

we should look at Continuously Improving Knowledge in our pursuit to Perfection. It’s an unending improvement process always look at opportunities to enhance your knowledge with the objective of achieving perfection in your work areas

The next constituent of Lean , the 3 "M'.

The first is Muda

the second is Mura

and the third is Muri.

?MUDA is Japanese word meaning " waste". MURA means " inconsistency" and MURI means " unreasonableness so whenever you are looking at business process try and target these three elements. One which is Muda or any waste in the system there are 7 types of wastes that we talk about in Lean : overproduction , over processing, waiting , inventory , unnecessary transportation , unnecessary motion and defect. so, if you see in your business process the existence of any of these seven you would stop to target them. the second is "MURA" or inconsistency or variation, variation is an evil whenever a business process has high variability it is bound to create unacceptable performances, variation reduces predictability and predictability is a very important element of business success. The third " MURI" or unreasonableness if you find anything unreasonable in the business process you must target it immediately

there is variability in unscheduled leave, unplanned leaves

the count of production done by the people in your team has high variability

login hours have lot of variability, if you see things like these happening in the system, where you see very little predictability or lot of variability in how things are done. The productivity count of the people is wavering the accuracy scores are not consistent, login hours are a problem there is a lot of variability in the way things are done fantastic opportunity for you to fix it

Next " MURI" Muri or unreasonableness, you have unnecessary information available, unnecessary information being sought from customer which is not required to process a particular transaction.???????

…………………………………………TO be continued…………………………….