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Over the last year Efficiency Works have been training Stoddart Manufacturing in competitive manufacturing and lean thinking.  In an article on Industry Search Bill Stoddart the Managing Director talks about how this has been good for his company and warns against the temptation to drastically cut spending on skills and training in tough times. He says

“To maintain a competitive advantage business needs a skilled workforce.

“But it’s not just about being competitive. By investing in skills you retain your workforce. Investment in training produces a highly skilled and motivated workforce of staff who want a meaningful career.”

Read the full article here.

www.industrysearch.com.au/features/industry_leader_warns_against_shortage_in_downturn_2831

How does TPM relate to Lean Manufacturing? Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) is really about applying Lean Manufacturing to the way we care for our equipment. TPM is an important part of our Lean Manufacturing initiative, because without it we will experience difficulty as we improve the flow of materials through the introduction of pull systems and the elimination of waste between the steps in our process.

Fundamentally, TPM is about applying flow, takt, standard work and pull systems to the way we maintain and care for our equipment. It is a culture change in the way people care for equipment that is much more than marking, labeling, cleaning machines, or operators doing maintenance work. Total Productive Maintenance is an equipment and process improvement strategy that links many of the elements of a good maintenance program to achieve higher levels of equipment effectiveness. It includes a set of techniques pioneered by Denso in the Toyota Group in Japan, to ensure that each machine in our production process is always able to perform its required tasks.

The approach is called “total” in 4 main areas:

Total Participation supported by “Total” Leadership. Firstly TPM requires the total participation of all employees, not only maintenance personnel but line managers, manufacturing engineers, quality experts and operators. This involves everyone knowing their exact roles and responsibilities, and then executing those roles reliably, on a daily basis. For operators this will involve well developed checklists and simple maintenance tasks set out every shift. We will need to ensure that abnormalities are recorded and reported promptly to maintenance personnel for repair. The maintenance technicians will be required to look for ways to eliminate those problems and at least establish PM’s to ensure the problem does not reoccur. Engineering will be required to aid maintenance in ongoing equipment improvement. And managers will provide the discipline in the system by ensuring relevant metrics are collected and channeled into the problem solving process.

Total Productivity. Secondly TPM is aiming for total productivity of equipment by focusing on the six machine losses: breakdowns, changeovers, minor stops, speed losses, scrap and rework. Years of experience and measuring at Toyota has shown that up to 1/3 of all production downtime is caused by simple limit or proximity switch confirmation failures. Our aim should be to eliminate all production “downtime” and at least as a stopgap aim for “single minute maintenance”- less than 10 minutes for any breakdown.

Total Lifecycle. Thirdly TPM addresses reliability throughout the total life cycle of the equipment to revise maintenance practices, preventative maintenance intervals, activities and improvements depending on where the equipment is in its life cycle. TPM includes daily maintenance by operators, namely simple checking and lubrication that results in early detection and fixing of problems. This aspect is probably one of the most significant aspects of TPM. This may involve more widespread use of “Condition Monitoring”. Specialists become involved to carry out “machine kaizen” or corrective maintenance. At Toyota this is the result of detailed studies over the whole life of the equipment to see where time, spare parts and dollars have been consumed, all in the search of maintenance prevention.

Total Systems approach. TPM also includes a focus on the whole system with a constant effort to improving all aspects of the equipment lifecycle, pursuit of efficiency and participation by everyone. This includes linking and improving all support activities eg employee training and development, spare parts management, document control, maintenance data collection and analysis, and feedback to equipment vendors.

Unlike traditional reactive and preventative maintenance, which relies on maintenance personnel, TPM involves operators in routine maintenance, improvement projects and simple repairs. This would typically include daily activities such as lubrication, cleaning, tightening and inspecting equipment.

In this way, for those of us with equipment centric processes, TPM is an important part of Lean Manufacturing.

Adapted from Robert M Williamson - Strategic Work Systems and the Lean Lexicon - Lean Enterprise Institute

Recently Efficiency Works exhibited at the 2008 Queensland Manufacturing Technology Exhibition (QMan) held at the Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre from October 21-23.  During the exhibition we met many new people interested in Lean Manufacturing and refreshed some existing acquaintances.  During the exhibition many visitors listened to a range of interesting speakers.

The keynote speaker was Andrew Smith from the University of Ballarat who presented the findings from a research project completed for the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER). The research project is called “To have and to hold: Retaining and utilising skilled people” and covers the issues companies should be focusing on in order to attract and retain good staff.  The findings highlighted the importance of creating the right learning environment and in particular the need to provide nationally recognised training similar to the Lean Manufacturing training available through Efficiency Works.

The full report can be found at www.ncver.edu.au/research/proj/nr06004.pdf

The Lean manufacturing model has been used by the car manufacturer, Toyota, for more than 50 years as a way to streamline the overall business and increase the efficiency of the operation as well as the quality of the product or service it provides. Since the 80’s and 90’s, lean manufacturing concepts have been proved upon and it has grown it size and popularity over the years.

Recent developments in lean manufacturing continue to improve upon the original concepts, first written about by two Englishmen named Womack and Jones in the book Lean Thinking.  The authors are still working on the lean concepts and now have started working on how the lean principles are applied in consumption. They are researching what happens when consumers go out and buy things and how people will travel around to get the different things we need. As consumers, we must go out and look for things we want and need. That traveling for consumption consumes a lot of energies and time. Using the principles of lean manufacturing, the gentlemen are working on ways to actually smooth the flow of the process for consumers who are looking to procure items.

Another recent development in lean manufacturing is concerning the issues of efficiency and sustainability. There is research about the concepts of lean thinking and how it can be applied to making the manufacturing process more efficient from an energy and environmental point of view.

As lean manufacturing evolves, it will no doubt become more and more important for businesses to incorporate the concepts of lean thinking into their companies, if only to remain competitive. Those businesses that have already begun using the concepts of lean manufacturing realize the value of having to spend less time, less energy, less money, and have less waste in the overall scheme of things.

There is a lot of information now available about the concepts of the lean manufacturing process. The ability to streamline and effectively organize a business is not difficult to learn or to understand. Essentially any business can use the lean manufacturing model to their advantage in order to reach their optimum potential.

Lean manufacturing and the lean manufacturing process is a concept that was first used by the car manufacturing company Toyota. In fact, the process has been a part of Toyota’s organization for the last 50 years. The lean manufacturing concept essentially involves streamlining the entire process of the production of a company’s product or service. This includes every part of the business, from the order as it first comes in, all the way through the life of the product. As the business becomes more efficient, it can offer its customers competitive pricing and with that, the company is increased growth potential.

Today’s companies that have instituted lean manufacturing processes have found it advantageous to the company as a whole. For example, Toyota still works to improve the quality of their product while reducing costs. Toyota is the only car company in the worth today that is actually building car plants while many of the others in the car industry are closing down operations. Toyota has attempted to teach others to understand and implement the lean system into their manufacturing and continues to grow more after 50 years.

Another success story of the lean manufacturing process is the computer manufacturer Dell. When a customer orders a Dell computer, they actually configure the computer online or with a customer service representative. For Dell, their cash-to-cash cycle (the period of time between when the customer pays and when the company needs to pay for materials) is a negative number of days. Dell actually gets payment from the customer for products they sell 17 days before they have to pay for their materials.

There are other companies that have used the lean manufacturing process to their benefit in other ways. One company was able to reduce the amount of down time on one of their machines from 17% to 6% in just a few months simply by engaging people more and involving them in the processes of continuous improvement. People want to be involved and support is crucial when implementing a successful lean manufacturing program.

Another example of how a company benefited from the lean process is one that created over a million dollars worth of capacity by holding a workshop to look at the changeovers in the company. After working for several days with teams of company employees, going over the changeovers, that million dollars worth of capacity was created every year from the workshop onwards.

Lean manufacturing has many benefits for both the business and its customers. The process can be incorporated into any business that offers customers a service or a product. Provided management is on board with their total support, the lean manufacturing process can make a big impact on a company and its customers in a short period of time.

There are many benefits of lean manufacturing. While lean manufacturing started out as a concept in the car manufacturing industry, it has grown and progressed a lot over time. Now essentially any manufacturing process can incorporate the lean manufacturing concept into their business. It makes no difference if your company provides a product or a service. Lean manufacturing is about improving the flow of information and materials through the business and throughout the process. The end result creates a smoother flow of work and shortens lead times for the customer. The overall manufacturing costs are reduced and more waste is eliminated. If your business producing something meant for a customer, the lean manufacturing process can be incorporated to improve the efficiency of the entire business.

Lean manufacturing has a lot of benefits for everyone involved but the three most important benefits of lean manufacturingg are as follows:

1.    Reducing lead times

2.    Reducing costs

3.    Creating extra capacity within the business

Because everything is done more efficiently through the lean manufacturing process, the lead times for customers are reduced. This is a benefit for the company as well because cash that is used to purchase new materials can be invoiced to the customer in a more expedient manner. Additionally, the cost reductions can be passed on to the customer, which keeps the company competitive in the industry. As the company becomes more streamlined and organized throughout its entire manufacturing process – from order to delivery - there becomes more capacity for growth. The business that is able to grow and offer competitive rates benefits greatly. The customer who receives the product or service in a faster time period and for less cost is likely to stay a customer.

Lean manufacturing is not a difficult concept to learn. One of the biggest problems people is experience is caused by management’s lack of understanding and supporting a lean program. Without sufficient support from the organization’s senior management, it is likely that a lean program will not work unless everyone is on board and taking the time to understand what the concept is all about. Management’s lack of support trickles on down to the floor people, who are actually supposed to be working the process. Unless an organization is willing to put forth the time and the effort to truly incorporate the lean manufacturing process into the company, it will not be easily accomplished and they may miss out on the benefits of lean manufacturing.

So what is lean manufacturing?

Lean manufacturing, also referred to as “lean thinking”, is a term coined sometime in the late 80’s/earlier 90’s. The term stems from a book entitled, The Machine That Changed the World. The books was written based on research done by MIT who were looking at the car manufacturer Toyota and what they were doing in the way they were building cars. The MIT researchers were looking at the production system within Toyota and how it differed from other car manufacturers and other traditional mass production processes.
Essentially, lean manufacturing is a business system that constitutes organizing and managing everything in the organization that results in creating a product or providing a service using less effort, less space, less invested capital, less materials, and less time. While working through the process, the company is still producing exactly what the customer wants and provides a product or service with fewer defects. While lean manufacturing was pioneered by Toyota, it has become a new paradigm for manufacturing and has grown in both breadth and size since that time.
In 1996, two men named Womack and Jones who were from England, wrote the book Lean Thinking. In 2007, they began to change the way lean manufacturing was described. They split up the concept into purpose, process, and people. It is about what the customer really wants and sees as valuable and then building on that through the development process, through the manufacturing process, and carries it through right until fulfillment, support, and essentially for the life of the product. The lean manufacturing process now encourages a culture where everyone is involved with product or service improvement on a continuous basis, based on the values that have been identified.
Customers are expecting a lot more than in years past as far as pricing and lead times. Lean manufacturing may have started out based on the car industry but has since grown into a concept used by most manufacturing companies in order to remain competitive. While the term lean is a bit misleading, it is all about making the manufacturing process more efficient and better for both the business and the customer. Businesses have more of a capacity to grow and the concept is not difficult for any type of manufacturing business to understand or incorporate into their current structure. It is simply about being more organized, more efficient in the workplace. Most importantly businesses need to keep in mind that they need to keep identifying the constraints in their business and use the lean manufacturing process to keep working to improve on those limitations.