What is Lean Production?
Lean is about doing more with less: less time, inventory, space, labor, and money. "Lean manufacturing", a shorthand for a commitment to eliminating waste, simplifying procedures and speeding up production. The idea is to pull inventory through based on customer demand.
Lean Manufacturing (also known as the Toyota Production System) is, in its most basic form, the systematic elimination of waste – overproduction, waiting, transportation, inventory, motion, over-processing, defective units – and the implementation of the concepts of continuous flow and customer pull.
Five areas drive lean manufacturing/production:
- cost
- quality
- delivery
- safety, and
- morale.
Just as mass production is recognized as the production system of the 20th century, lean production is viewed as the production system of the 21st century. In fact, the processes involved in lean are ideal for any business whose inventory accumulates in buffer stocks.
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