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When building a tanning bed with
the lean manufacturing
process should help create a better bed and better profits.
MIT's five-year study of the
world automotive industry, "The Machine That Changed the World" (1990)
reinforced Schonberger's 1982 conclusions. Widely read, it focuses on
comparisons of quality and productivity. Conclusion: plants using the
Toyota system, renamed "lean production", significantly outperform
traditional plants — whether located in Japan or not. The definition and
building blocks of lean became widely understood.
The effort to convert to lean gained momentum. A reliable means of
implementation emerged when kaizen events became the accepted vehicle
for the transformation. Hundreds of American companies have conducted
thousands of kaizens. These cross-functional, six to 10 member teams
spend two to five days focused on a defined area of the plant. Using
standardized tools and techniques, they analyze, brainstorm, implement
changes, measure effect, and document the new system.
Typical gains of 25 percent in productivity, reductions of 90 percent in
WIP, 50 percent in floor space, and 75 percent in travel distance are
real and immediate. Lean works — quickly. It's results-based and
measurable. Faith is replaced with a bias-for-action.
It all sounds great in theory. You continue to run kaizens until you've
completed the conversion to lean and enjoy all the benefits.
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Resource pages
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