Eagle Insights: Lean Manufacturing

Changes in manufacturing are increasingly placing pressure on businesses to improve the efficiency of their operations on daily basis. In order to meet these demands and find success, businesses have adopted a wide array of efficiency methods, including lean manufacturing, just-in-time manufacturing and Kanban. While these practices have been given different names by various companies, each originated out of the Toyota Production System (TPS) and work in conjunction with one another. By definition, lean manufacturing focuses on minimizing waste in the manufacturing process without sacrificing productivity by keying on what adds value and reducing everything else. Meanwhile, just-in-time manufacturing spotlights a methodology for reducing flow times within production as well as response times from suppliers to customers. Both of these practices are then organized by the Kanban system, which provides a scheduling framework to maximize manufacturing efficiency through organization and transparency. When properly executed, this approach serves as a real-time information vessel by quickly identifying any problems or errors that might halt efficiency efforts.