In: Operations Management
Critical Thinking
The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002).Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at cheaper rate and to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).
Increased global competition leads the industry to increasing efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keenindecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasing global economy, cost effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.
To meet all the challenges organizations try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes its efforts to reduce the manufacturing costs and to improve the quality of product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supplytechniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firm’sleads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).
Consult chapter 7 of your text book or secondary available data on internet and answer the following questions.
Question:
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Assess the reasons for using lean thinking (suitable examples), what are the benefits from Suppliers to end users?
One of the key factors for using lean design as outlined above is to reduce waste. The benefit of lean definition for the consumer is that it helps to boost customer engagement. Lean philosophy starts in mind with the client. In this situation, the companies are taking an extra step to get consumers input on the areas they believe can be changed. Apart from increased customer engagement by sourcing them for reviews, the other way that lean thinking benefits the consumer is through improved quality. Lean design implementation allows the manufacturers to pay attention to the data. It is based on the idea that the purpose of the definition is to reduce waste and eliminate reworks.
On the other hand, when it comes to the supplier, the concept of lean thinking is beneficial to them in the sense that it helps in reducing costs. The suppliers benefit from maximizing their returns through the use of lean concept. In this case, the increase or maximization in returns is based on a reduction in inventory costs and the holding costs. Apart from that, the other way in which lean manufacturing will be important to the manufacturers is through boosting their morale. The suppliers will be motivated by the fact that what they offer for sale is sold and nothing is left.