15 Characteristics of Lean Flashcards
Customer
The external customer is the starting and ending point. Seek to maximise value to the customer. Optimise around the customer, not around internal operations. Understand the customer’s true demand, what he would really like, not what can be supplied.
Simplicity
Lean is not simple but simplicity pervades. Simplicity in operation, in system, in technology, in control is the goal. Simplicity applies to product through part count reduction and commonality. Simplicity applies to suppliers through working closely with a few trusted partners. Simplicity applies in the plant by creating focused factories-within-a-factory. Beware complex computer systems, complex and large automation, complex product lines, complex rewards. Select the smallest, most simple machine possible consistent with quality requirements.
Visibility
Seek to make all operations as visible and transparent as possible. Control by sight. Adopt the visual factory
Regularity
Regularity makes for “no surprises” operations. We run our lives on regularity (sleep, breakfast, etc.); we should make our operations run on this basis too. Seek “repeater” products and run them in the same time slots – this cuts inventory, improves quality and allows simplicity of control. “Time pacing” in new product introduction shortens the development cycle and makes innovation the norm.
Synchronisation
Seek “keep it moving” manufacture. Seek flow, especially one-piece flow. Synchronise operations so that the streams meet just in time.
Pull
Seek for operations to work at the customer’s rate of demand. Avoid overproduction. Have pull-based demand chains, not push-based supply chains. Pull should take place at the customer’s rate of demand. In demand chains this should be the final customer, not distorted by intermediate “bullwhip” effects.
Waste
Waste is endemic. Learn to recognise it and seek to reduce it, always. Everyone from chairman to cleaner should wear “muda spectacles” at all times.
Process
Organise and think by the process view, the supply chain perspective. Think horizontal not vertical. Concentrate on the way the product moves not on the way the machines or people or services move. Map to understand the process.
Prevention
Seek to prevent problems, rather than to inspect and fix. Shift the emphasis from failure and appraisal to prevention. Inspecting the process, not the product, is prevention.
Time
Seek to reduce the overall time to make, to deliver and to introduce new products. Use simultaneous, parallel and overlapping operations in operations, design and support services. Seek never to delay a value-adding step by a non- value-adding step. Time is the best single overall measure.
Improvement
Improvement, and continuous improvement in particular, is everyone’s concern. Make improvements both “enforced” and passive, both incremental and breakthrough. Improvement goes beyond waste reduction to include innovation.
Partnership
Seek to co-operative working both internally between functions, and externally with suppliers. Supply chains compete not companies. Employees are partners too. Seek to build trust.
Gemba
Go to the workplace and seek the facts. Manage by walking around. Implementation takes place on the floor, not in the office. Encourage the spirit of Gemba throughout.
Variation
Variation is found in every process. Seek to reduce it. Measure it, know the limits, and learn to distinguish between natural variation and special events. Manage it. Build in appropriate flexibility. Shockproof the system.
Participation
Give operators the first opportunity to solve problems. All employees should share responsibility for success and failure. True participation implies full information sharing.”
