Lean Production : Toyota's Secret Weapon

Production practices have had an important role in satisfying the dynamic market. Many approaches have being developed in order to respond effectively to specific business requirements. In fact, some areas of management have focused its study on the overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production in an effort to find the best methodology that ensures the business success and performance. However, complexities arise in this field because many variables such as costs, inventory, scheduling, suppliers, etc have to be considered in any business. Lean approach and the traditional approach are two points of view that aim to address this complexities, and those will be examined in this essay.

The company should also focus on lean manufacturing because it has certain positive points like increase of efficiency, decrease in the waste, improvement of control and also this will create the unique demand and need of the customer in terms of products. It will also offer cost savings strategy and will maximize the high amount of values ​​with high

Chase et al. (2006) state that “lean production is an integrated set of activities designed to achieve high-volume production using minimal inventories of raw materials, work-in-process, and finished goods” (p. 471). The essential components of lean production are surplus elimination, constant work-flow, and consumer appeal. The minute these components are in the neighborhood of supply, quality and cost, this outlines the groundwork for a lean production organization. A Japanese plan of continuous progress named the Kaizen is responsible for the lean production idea. Riordan can adjust the lean production concept by employee empowerment and advancement, staying focused on making processes stronger, impact of consumer relations, rapid merchandise growth and production, and cooperation with suppliers are the imperative strategies of Riordan managing lean. Features of a lean enterprise include a combined single piece continuous workflow and near incorporation of the entire value series from raw material to finished product. In addition, demand drives production rather than predictions. This means that manufacture designing is by consumer demand or appeal and not to become system loading or strict work flows on the company floor. This will help Riordan keep minimal inventories at each step of the production process. It is also important to know that having a working participation by employees involved in

Lean thinking is an organizational change method that is also implemented with the objective of increasing profit. Lean thinking originated in Japan, and is best exemplified by the Toyota Production System. Constraints placed on the Japanese manufacturing industry after the second world war lead Taiichi Ohno of Toyota to pioneer a new type of production system that was so different, and so much better, than mass production, as to warrant a new type manufacturing. Lean production is a method of organizing production using half the effort, space, inventory, and product development time compared with mass production. It also achieves fewer defects, and larger product variety. These improvements should result in increased sales, which is the key to re-deploying freed-up resources. Lean thinking codified and expanded upon the Toyota Production System to include non-manufacturing organizations, as well as product development efforts.

The concept of Lean Manufacturing was not quickly adopted by the United States manufacturing companies because of the cost incurred by changing the old manufacturing processes; the perceived need did not outweigh the benefits. In the 1970’s and the1980’s manufacturing companies in the United States took a closer look when Japanese and Chinese companies were selling similar products as the United States like cars, trucks, electronics, and toy, but at lower cost to the U.S. consumers. Companies within the United States urgently sought out experts from Japan to understand this new method due to declining revenues and the realization they were being forced out of market share. They learned that the concept of Lean Manufacturing was to change the goals by exposing waste in all areas within the manufacturing process with an increased focus to satisfy

The skilled workers in lean production systems are become more involved in upholding and improving the system than their mass production complements. For instance, the skilled workers are taught to detect an operation in case something is defective. Their job is to work with other employees within the operation to find and correct the cause of the defect and make sure it does not happen again. In future proposes using the lean system will increase level of quality over time and eliminate the need to

Lean manufacturing originated long before Toyota and Ford, however the thought that it originated with Toyota is flattering since they are the ones who perfected it. By creating the Toyota Production System (TPS), Toyota found a better way to produce large quantities of product efficiently with eliminating the waste factor and while cutting down cost. Taiichi Ohno a former Toyota vice president promoted the idea of JIT (Just-in-Time) which means “producing the necessary units in the necessary quantities at the necessary time.” (Monden) Which leads to Toyota’s ultimate goal in the TPS is to improve productivity for better return in investment. To have continuous flow in a production system Toyota sought out to achieve the concept of JIT and autonomation . Since the TPS is what creates the parts who monitors the JIT system? The kanban system which is an informational system that controls quantities being produce in each process. As the discussion carries on throughout this paper about Toyota and their use of the kanban system the topic

Lean must be brought into the discussion as a possible means of supplementing and strengthening lean manufacturing in situations where its principles may fall short. In this Project we want to emphasize on three methods

In our economy today we face major issues dealing with manufacturing with how do we build or retain the capacity and competitive edge in the global market? Well manufactured is measured in a number of ways, such as statistics and analyses. These metrics range from the amount and type of goods produced, to a detailed breakdown of the people who contribute to this production, to the economic impact of both. But knowing the market is tough using lean manufacturing techniques as a tool any company can maintain control of an operation of any business.

Lean manufacturing is a method of carefully reducing non-value-adding work during production. Value is defined from customer’s perspective as any action or process that the customer will be willing to pay for. Lean manufacturing has been traced to automobile industry – Ford motors in the United States and Toyota motors in Japan(Singh et al., 2010a; Singh et al., 2010b). These companies simplified the processes of making their products by eliminating non-adding-value works. This also led to standardization.

When the entire analysis process was completed, it was possible to identify how Toyota, having created the Lean Production method, had higher standards to any competitor in the industry. In this way, it began to replicate this method in many production plants in US and Europe. However, not only the comparative analysis of the production processes was made, but also extended to the supply chain. Once again, the results were surprising since the performance of Toyota in terms of the supply chain was much more efficient than other companies. In this way, they began to adopt similar measures to those of Toyota´s practices in order to maximize resources and making the transition from a mass production model to a Lean Production model (Graves A. and Madigan, D., 2012).

The concept of "lean production" was first introduced in The Machine that Changed the World (Womack et al., 1991) to refer to a new way of looking at the manufacturing enterprise. It was distinguished from mass production by its single-minded focus on eliminating waste in all aspects of the enterprise.

At the current situation, Lean Manufacturing has turned into an overall marvel. It is entirely effective in drawing the consideration of organizations of all sizes. An extensive number of organizations are taking after Lean advancements and encountering unlimited upgrades in quality, production, customer service etc. According to lean principles, any use of resources that does not deliver consumer value is a target for change or elimination. It also refers to the elimination of non-value adding/wastes. This Lean approach has mainly been applied in manufacturing, notably in Toyota, and the Toyota Production System, from where Lean originates in the early 1960’s but not to a complete extent. However, lean has also been widely applied in non-manufacturing areas. ‘Lean Management’, or rather ‘Lean production’ is considered to be a smart approach on a system of measures and methodologies. Considering the aspects on a whole, the potential to bring the concept of Lean in various fields of activity like product development, supply chain,

The concept of Lean Manufacturing gets is roots from car manufacturing in the early 1930s and 1940s. Stemming from innovative production techniques developed and implemented by Henry Ford, modern day Lean Manufacturing was developed by Taiichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Company after World War II as a result of the diverse market conditions the company faced.

When it comes to Lean Enterprise, it focuses mainly on reducing cycle time and also waste in the process. Lean Enterprise was at first developed by Toyota Motor Corporation as the Toyota Production System which became popular after 1973. The energy crisis facilitated the increasing demand at that time. “The term ‘Lean Enterprise’ is used to broaden the scope of a Lean programme from manufacturing to embrace the enterprise or entire organization”. (Alukal, 2003)