Lean Manufacturing Will Help Increase Profit Through Waste Elimination
Most studies indicate that a large proportion of our time is spent doing non-value added tasks. Lean manufacturing consultants can show you how to increase profit through waste elimination, waste reduction and waste prevention.
It’s incredible how much time is spent conducting activities that create unnecessary waste; waste is moving products around, waiting for product or information, dealing with quality problems, chasing suppliers, fixing mechanical breakdowns and much more. In reality, companies that are not lean spend by far too much time on activities that are irrelevant. More time needs to be spent on adding value to the product and a lean manufacturing consultant can show you how.
There can be a huge difference made to your business if these wasteful activities can be reduced and if employees spend more time doing what the customer really wants. Lean will very simply reduce your costs and therefore increase your profits.
Waste reduction is a major component of lean manufacturing.
Value Add vs Non-Value Add
There are two parts to any work, a portion that adds value and a portion that does not add value, but what is “value add”? Something adds value if it physically alters the product or service to what the customer truly wants.
If you think about it, you are paying for every non-value adding activity in your company; the cost of each comes directly out of profits. Each non-value adding operation you can eliminate will add to your profit and this in turn, will please shareholders.
Non-Value adding operations are simply waste. Something is only adding value if it meets an explicit customer requirement and cannot be shown to be performed more economically. Implementing lean manufacturing can help you to reduce or eliminate these wastes.
The Wastes
Transportation: The movement of products between different operations and locations. Of course transportation cannot be totally eliminated but more often than not many manufacturers are poorly organized and transportation of goods within a warehouse to external transportation is more often than not lean.
Inventory: Generally the vast amounts of material held as both finished product and work in progress are driven by traditional manufacturing’s tendency to run enormous batches to maximize machine efficiency and to insulate against problems. Lean manufacturing can change this.
Motion: The unnecessary movement of a machine or a person. For example, picking up heavy items at floor level to relocate to a workable height or machines that have to travel excessive distances before actual work commences.
Waiting: People or machinery that sits idle waiting for previous operations, item delivery, information, problem solving, or other potential interruptions.
Overproduction: Producing an order that the customer does not want until a later date leads to unnecessary inventory.
Over-Processing: Doing unnecessary work such as polishing surfaces that are never seen.
Defects: The products that are incorrectly manufactured that leads to reproducing, scrap, delays, additional paperwork, additional employee hours, etc.
A lean manufacturing consultant will show you how your company will eliminate all these wastes and maximize profits.