Value Stream Mapping and Other Lean Manufacturing Tools

Fall 2001 Issue

Lean the Right Way for Your Company

By Chuck Spangler,
SCMEP Vice President of Field Operations

Although there are countless books and articles and even more consultants out there with their own ideas about what Lean means, do you actually know what Lean means to your operation? The tools of lean manufacturing are not new - kaizen events, kanban system, visual controls, activity-based costing, Just-in-Time, total quality management, value stream mapping, and others have been on the minds of manufacturers for a number of years. But making sense of all these practices, and determining which solutions are best for your business is clearly a tall order.

So how do you determine what lean means to your operation, and which practices best constitute lean? Several U.S. manufacturers have achieved great success from implementing lean practices in their businesses - most notably in the automotive sector, perhaps because Toyota and Ford are the "grandfathers" of the entire lean concept.

As Shigeo Shingo so eloquently stated in A Study of the Toyota Production System, "Some people imagine that Toyota has put on a smart new set of clothes, the kanban system, so they go out and purchase the same outfit and try it on. They quickly discover that they are much too fat to wear it! They must eliminate waste and make fundamental improvements in their production system before techniques like kanban can be of any help."

The challenge is creating your own version of a lean manufacturing system instead of adopting another company's exact philosophy and practice. What works for one company may not necessarily work for another. Many manufacturing companies make the mistake of trying to implement lean practices throughout the entire enterprise. In theory, this sounds good. But in actuality, it's better to first determine your specific constraints and then apply the appropriate lean strategies and principles to achieve your overall business goals - ultimately reducing cost, improving productivity, improving on-time delivery, and shortening cycle time between customer order and ship date. In other words, create a lean system that provides the biggest boost to your bottom line. If you automatically assume everything less is best, then you could possibly eliminate important processes.

The SCMEP encompasses some of the most knowledgeable people in the industry who help manufacturing companies become leaner organizations through teaching, implementing and practicing continuous improvement techniques. The SCMEP can help support your company objectives and identify various types of waste in your specific operation. The SCMEP's improvement projects range from Value Stream Mapping to Pull/Kanban Production methods to Kaizen Event Facilitation. So, if you're ready to reduce inventory by 95%, cut scrap/rework by 95%, or reduce changeover time from hours to minutes, then you're ready to tackle Lean. The SCMEP is here to help you determine which part to tackle first.