Question

Identify 2-3 principles or elements of lean manufacturing and discuss how they are or could be applied in a specific organization. You may select any type of organization, including service-providers.

Answer 1

Principles of lean manufacturing that can be applied include:-

1. Reducing wastage in the processes including transportation, time and inventory. By reducing wastage, and optimizing the processes companies create value in their supply chain as well as business processes.

2. Agile manufacturing allows the company to effectively set up a plan or a process in place which essentially allows the best practices of the system to be adopted in the sense that all the selected processes are optimized and also steps that help optimize other processes.

3. Standardization of the process, technology and environment is necessary to increase production and reduce wastage.

This can be used in industries with varying structure and market including pharmaceuticals, healthcare, electronics and services for example NETFLIX.

Healthcare industries make use of lean methodology by involving the use of inventory management system and just in time inventory. Essentially, they use the newest equipment they can afford, remove the things and processes that they do not need and essentially follow a system of standardization from process to process and even within the competition.

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