Question

What is the benefit of the lean philosophy? What are some examples of non-value added lead time? How does a Pareto chart assist management? In what ways can the cost of a process be improved?

Answer 1

The benefits of the lean philosophy are:

1. Greater productivity

When a lean methodology is applied, it eliminates tasks that add no value to the customer which is referred to as ‘waste’. Producing unnecessary materials, idle time caused by slow systems are examples of ‘waste’. Removing these from process helps to increase productivity.

2. Eliminating defects

Defects means money,time and risk of not delivering the product to the end customer on time.Lean methodology's objective is to eliminate defects so that products are made right first time, every time.

3. Safer working environment

Less inventory means less amount of unnecessary work. Well organised equipment and tools means unexpected movements of these things are minimised.

4. Increased customer satisfaction

Lean is about maintaining happy customers. After removing "waste", one can deliver exactly what the customer wants and when they want it.

Some examples of non-value added lead time are:

Excess transportation, which means transporting to different facilities without increasing it's worth to the customer, overproduction where more number of products are made than necessary and waiting time of machines or people who are required to sit idle waiting for pieces or orders.

A Pareto chart helps the management to prioritize decisions so that the management knows which ones will have the greatest influence on their overall goals and which ones will have the least amount of impact.

The cost of a process can be improved in the following ways:

1.  Controlling production levels.

For the different types of organizations, controlling and optimizing production levels means that you’re not overproducing material, instead only producing a quantity of products aligned with demand.

2. Illuminating process errors or defects.

Process optimization is not only about making the operations run smoothly. It is also about getting ahead of major errors to avoid unnecessary costs.

3) Reduced queue times on tasks.

Process optimization can help organisations cut down drastically on waiting times which means that progress is not likely to stop due to delays at any stage of work.