Question

A study by Agus and Hajinoor into the adoption of lean management among 200 (non-food) manufacturing companies in the Malay Peninsula identified that reducing setup times, shortening lead times and focusing on pull factors (such as maintaining production at levels commensurate to consumption) helped reduce costs and improve profitability.

Question : What other strategies could be implemented along with lean production to improve quality and productivity?

Answer 1

Lean production is a strategy for improving productivity by eliminating or reducing wastes. Wastes are of seven types:Transportation, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Over-production, Over-processing and Defects. Lately, an eighth waste - Skills i.e. inadequate or improper usage of manpower, has been added to the list of types of wastes.

Besides using lean production techniques, which are only one part contributing to the organisation's productivity and quality, there are other functions that can be improved. Some are listed below.

1. Using supplier quality improvement to enhance the quality of the incoming product which would contribute to overall quality of output.

2. Training the employees of different from functional units in quality improvement techniques through initiative such as TQM for organisation vide quality consciousness. Use of quality management system would also be appropriate.

3. Establishment of an effective communication channel for feedback from supply end so as to ensure customer satisfaction and improve the quality further as per customer expectations.

4. Ensuring high employee morale and motivation to improve engagement and higher productivity.