How to Prevent Hiccups in Lean Manufacturing

March 1, 2021

Using five core values, lean manufacturing operates on the principle of reducing waste and maximizing efficiency to improve business productivity. Ultimately, the experts at C Tek say that your end goal should be to continually improve your company’s manufacturing process. That might also mean making some changes to eliminate hiccups.

Identify Waste

One of the first and most important steps to improving the manufacturing process is to get rid of waste. Waste can include several different types, including:

  • Inventory
  • Overproduction
  • Manpower and Time
  • Machine and Production
  • Defect

Inventory waste includes outdated or unnecessary items. Overproduction waste means that you are overestimating production volume. Reducing waste in manpower and time entails more training. In turn, more highly-trained employees can cut down on machine and production process waste by learning how to use machinery safely and efficiently, which adds value, reduces time, and minimizes cost. Eliminating defect waste means finding and fixing common mistakes so that they are not made repeatedly.

Tune-Ups

Keeping an eye on machinery operations helps employees identify more quickly if something is wrong. A plant’s machines should receive regular tune-ups, upgrades when necessary, and more major repairs if they break. Even small adjustments and improvements can keep machines operating for longer and more efficiently.

Create a Manufacturing Workflow

Creating a step-by-step manufacturing workflow is a good way to establish a continuous and smooth production cycle. It also helps employees recognize and learn to eliminate waste, even by starting with small steps. Creating a constructive workflow requires analyzing waste points and developing a comprehensive work plan to gradually reduce waste at each step in the manufacturing process.

Train Employees

Employees who are not properly and effectively trained end up costing companies money and time. Undertrained or improperly-trained employees can also negatively impact the lifespan of your facility’s equipment. Investing in workplace efficiency, which includes adequately training employees, is naturally a solution to eliminating the issues of lost time, money, and machinery. Scheduling training programs and sessions can also work to a company’s advantage.

Inventory Management

Creating an inventory of your company’s products and assets is one of the key values of lean manufacturing, and it also helps to eliminate hiccups. The main goal of inventory management is to create a “just-in-time” inventory, which means that a company stocks the tools and resources that it needs at the time that they are actually required, rather than collecting and stocking them beforehand. Making an in-depth inventory list of needs can cut down on manufacturing waste to start with.

Contact C Tek today for more details on reducing hiccups in lean manufacturing.

Posted in C Tek Blog