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22nd July 2023.
What is Lean?
Lean methodology originated in the Japan in the late 1940s and 1950s at Toyota. It was developed to respond to the inefficiencies and waste of traditional mass production methods. The goal of Lean is to eliminate waste and improve quality and efficiency.
Lean is also about creating a culture where everyone is valued and can suggest ways to make their work better. It's a way of making sure that there's a system in place to keep improving things all the time.
The main aim of Lean management is to make things better and faster by cutting down on activities that don't add value and making work flow smoothly. In Lean, we try to get rid of wasteful things like doing too much, waiting around, moving things unnecessarily, having too much stuff in stock, doing things that aren't needed, and making mistakes.
The Lean concept has been successfully applied in many business & production environments, from manufacturing to healthcare, engineering, and software development.
“Lean is both a philosophy and a discipline which, at its core, increases access to information to ensure responsible decision making in the service of creating customer value.” – Jim Benson
Case Study: Cedenco- Hastings, 2022
With support from Productivity People, a 90-day plan was developed for Cedenco in order to focus the efforts of the team and to aid prioritisation of activities.
The initial stages of the plan were focused on setting up the daily management system (DMS) and carrying out a Loss and Waste Analysis in the two main processing areas of the site.
Loss and Waste Analysis was immediately successful in the apple juice area. A deep dive into historical figures showed a significant drop in yield (Kg produced per Kg of input material) over the previous few years. Team engagement and structured problem solving were key in making progress here. The team quickly identified some significant causes of yield loss and started implementing robust fixes with immediate results. The ‘before’ and ‘after’ is shown below. These figures were from early in the season and the benefits only continued to increase from there.
Another key focus from Loss and Waste was throughput in the second plant area. A poor start to the season saw days with only 12 tons produced. A relentless pursuit of efficiency, improved material flow and problem solving all contributed to regularly exceeding the target of 30 tons per day and on occasion getting close to 40. A massive turn around in a short period of time for this local firm!
To learn more about Lean management practices, see it in action and gain valuable skills that you can implement in your business join us in August for our Intro to Lean Management Workshop with Productivity People.
