What is Lean Manufacturing? It is the elimination of waste. Taiichi Ohno’s seven wastes, plus Jon Sutter’s two—of Space and Energy.
While Toyota is the master developer of Lean Manufacturing principles, practices, standard methods and tools, it actually began with Henry Ford and continuous flow production lines. Toyota added Just in Time and Jidoka, (do not pass a defect forward), a technique developed on Toyoda weaving machines at the same time Henry was building the Model T and Pull of Materials (Kanban) based on the American supermarket of the 1950’s. Toyota went on to develop the process measurement tools of Standard Work and the techniques of Leveled Production.
The practice of 5S and Total Productive Maintenance are part of the Lean culture. The mature implementation of Lean in manufacturing, health care, insurance, service and distribution industries results in one-half the space, inventory, people, time, capital, and zero defects of a traditional batch and queue production system.
To learn more, browse Jon Sutter’s recommended reading list and begin your journey toward
Lean Manufacturing.
Jon F. Sutter’s newest Ultimate Lean Text is available now!
Introducing Ultimate Top Tier Minus One: Lean Accounting by Jon F. Sutter— a critical guide for the mature Lean organization. If you and your business have seen the benefits of implementing Lean and are committed to continuous improvement changes, you need this book.
Lean Accounting solidifies the Standard Operations process measurement tools into a seamless information process starting at the shop floor and flowing through to the long term
planning of the organization. It’s about more than just dollars.