Lean Production

Lean Production and Quality Management

Lean Production

• It involves producing goods and services with the minimum of wasted resources while maintaining high quality 

• Aims to increase efficiency

Types of waste 

• T – transport 

• O – overproduction 

• O – overprocessing 

• W – waiting 

• M – movement 

• E – excess inventory

• D – defects

Methods of lean production 

Simultaneous engineering 

• Product development is organised so that different stages are done at the same time instead of in sequence 

• It involves important tasks like essential design, market research, costing are done at the same time rather than in a sequence

• New products can be introduced quickly 

Cell production 

• Splitting flow production into self-contained groups that are responsible for whole work units. 

• Instead of each worker performing a single task, the production line is split into units – cells 

• Each cell produces complete units of work

• Every cell has a team leader, and every worker is multiskilled

• Performance is measured against pre-set targets 

• Benefits – 

  • Better worker commitment 

  • Job rotation 

  • Higher productivity 

  • Teamwork, sense of belonging 

Flexible specialisms 

• Having flexible production techniques –

  • Flexible employment contracts 

  • Flexible & adaptable machinery 

  • Flexible & multiskilled workers 

• Benefits –

  • Quicker response to changes in consumer demand 

  • Wider range of products

  • Reduced inventory 

  • Higher productivity 

• Time based management 

• Cuts out waste time in management

Just-in-time inventory 

• Involves fewer resources being tied up in buffer inventories

Kaizen – continuous improvement

• All workers contribute to improving business operations

• Managers want to keep production up to the mark and look for one-off improvements

• Workers know better than the manager, as they are actually involved in production

• Not just technological investments, series of small improvements

• Conditions necessary –

  • Management culture encourages worker participation

  • Team working

  • Empowerment

  • All employees are involved

Evaluation 

• Limitations –

  • Some changes can’t be introduced gradually, may require radical & expensive solution 

  • Resistance from senior managers 

  • Tangible costs in the short run 

  • May lead to diminishing returns

Advantages of lean production 

• Waste of time & resources eliminated 

• Reduced unit costs

• High profits 

• Easier operation, less crowded

• Lesser risk of damage 

• Quicker launch of new products

Is lean production & JIT for all businesses?

• Finance

  • Purchase of equipment and machinery is expensive

  • Lean production is impossible without flexible machinery

  • Small firms, limited resources, difficult to use lean production

  • May choose to specialise in niche market

• Management of change

  • More worker involvement

  • Depends on staff flexibility and corporation

  • Lean production is not suitable –

    • Difficult to forecast demand

    • Expensive to restart production

    • Uses it to make redundancies

    • Depend on customer service as USP

    • Cost of new tech, retraining is high

Quality 

• Product which meets customer expectations 

• A good quality product need not be expensive 

• Advantages –

  • Easy to create loyalty 

  • Reduced costs of complaints, returns 

  • Long PLC 

  • Less promotion 

  • Ability to charge a premium price

How to achieve quality 

1. Quality assurance 

• Checking for quality after every production process 

2. Quality control 

• Checking for quality once the production process is completed 

• Stages – 

  • Prevention 

  • Inspection 

  • Correction and improvement

Inspecting for quality 

• Quality inspection is expensive 

• Sampling process is used 

• Weaknesses 

  • Looking for problems, negative culture, resentment among workers 

  • Tedious job, demotivated, inefficient 

  • Take responsibility of quality away from workers

Quality assurance 

• Setting agreed quality standards at every stage of production 

• Self-checking by workers 

• More emphasis on prevention 

• Getting it right the first time 

• Checking of components during delivery, reducing time waste 

• Advantages – 

  • Job enrichment 

  • Increased motivation 

  • Used to trace back quality problems 

  • Reduces need for final inspection

Why is it important for businesses to establish quality-assurance systems?

• Involves staff – teamwork, motivation, sense of belonging 

• Can check every stage of production 

• Reduce costs 

• Gain accreditation for quality awards

Total quality management (TQM) 

• An approach to quality that aims to involve all employees in quality-improvement 

• It is a method of quality control where every employee is given the responsibility of maintaining quality standards at every stage of production rather than giving the entire responsibility to managers, or a separate quality control department. 

• TQM aims to achieve a zero defects policy where the product is made right in the first go. 

• However, this can only be done when the worker is given training. 

• TQM can act as a motivator for employees, as worker participation and delegation will increase. 

• This will not work for autocratic leaders