Lean Manufacturing is also known as Lean Manufacturing, where "Lean" means fine, precise, exquisite; "Benefit" means benefit, efficiency, etc. Lean Manufacturing is about just-in-time manufacturing, eliminating faults, eliminating all waste, and moving towards zero defects and zero inventory. Lean production is just-in-time manufacturing, eliminating failures, eliminating all waste, and marching toward zero defects and zero inventory. It is the United States Massachusetts Institute of Technology in a research project called "International Automotive Program" proposed. They have done a lot of investigation and comparison, that Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation's production method is the most applicable to modern manufacturing enterprises, a production organization and management, called lean production, in order to target the U.S. mass production methods too dry and bloated drawbacks. Lean production synthesizes the advantages of mass production and single-piece production methods, and seeks to achieve low-cost production of multiple varieties and high-quality products in mass production.
The Toyota Production System is also known as the Fine Production System, or Lean Production System.
[edit]Generation and promotion of lean production
In the early 20th century, since the creation of the first automobile production line by the Ford Motor Company in the United States, large-scale production lines have been the main feature of modern industrial production. The mass production method is to standardize, mass production to reduce production costs and improve production efficiency. This way to adapt to the United States at the time of the national conditions, the production of automobile production line, in one fell swoop the car from a handful of rich people's luxury into a mass transportation, the United States automobile industry has grown rapidly into the United States of America's a large branch of the industry, and to drive and promote the development of a large number of industries, including iron and steel, glass, rubber, electromechanical and even transportation services, including. Large-scale production in the history of production technology and production management is of great significance. But after the Second World War, society has entered a new stage of diversification of market demand, corresponding to the requirements of industrial production to the multi-species, small batch direction, the single-species, high-volume production of the weaknesses of the flow of production methods are becoming increasingly obvious. In order to comply with the requirements of the times, by Japan's Toyota Motor Corporation pioneered the lean production, as a multi-species, small batch mixed production conditions of high quality, low-consumption production method in practice to find, create.
In 1950, Japan's Toyoda Eiji visited Ford's car plant in Detroit, USA. At that time, the plant could produce 7,000 cars a day, more than the output of Toyota in Japan for a year. But Toyoda wrote in his inspection report: "There is still a possibility of improving the production system there."
Post-war Japan's economy was in the doldrums, and it lacked capital and foreign exchange. How to build up Japan's automobile industry? Copying the mass production methods of the United States or finding another way out in accordance with Japan's national conditions, Toyota chose the latter. Japan's social and cultural background and the United States is very different, Japan's family concept, obedience discipline and team spirit is not the Americans, Japan does not have so many foreign workers in the United States, there is no U.S. lifestyle formed by the proliferation of freewheeling and individualism. Japan's economic and technological base was also far removed from that of the United States. It was not possible for Japan to fully import American equipment for the production of automobiles, and Japan's desired production volume was only a few tenths of that of the United States. The law of "economies of scale" was put to the test.
Eiji Toyoda and his partner, Neiichi Ono, conducted a series of explorations and experiments to come up with a solution to the problem based on Japan's national conditions. After more than 30 years of hard work, the complete Toyota Production System was finally formed, enabling Japan's automobile industry to surpass that of the United States, with production reaching 13 million units, accounting for more than 30 percent of the world's total number of automobiles.
Manufacturing, electronics, computers, aircraft manufacturing and other industries in. The Toyota Production System is an important part of Japan's industrial competitive strategy, which reflects Japanese management thinking in the repetitive production process. The guiding ideology of the Toyota Production System is to optimize the production process as a whole, improve technology, streamline logistics, eliminate overproduction, eliminate ineffective labor and waste, effectively utilize resources, reduce costs, improve quality, and achieve the goal of achieving maximum output with minimum input.
The success of Japanese enterprises in the international market has aroused great interest in the western business community. western entrepreneurs believe that the way Japan adopts in production is the basis of its competition in the world market. since the 80's, some western countries have attached great importance to the study of the Toyota Production System and applied it to production management.
[edit]Characteristics of lean production
Pull just-in-time production
Taking the end-user's demand as the starting point of production. Emphasizes the balance of logistics, the pursuit of zero inventory, and requires that parts processed in the previous process are immediately available for the next process.
Organization of the production line relies on a form called Kanban. That is, by the Kanban to pass the next to back up the demand for information (Kanban form is not limited, the key is to be able to pass the information). The rhythm of production can be controlled manually, but the emphasis is on ensuring the balance of the tough flow of production (for each process, that is, to ensure that the supply of the backward process on time). Due to the use of pull production, production planning and scheduling is essentially completed by the production units themselves, in the form of centralized planning is not used, but the operation process of coordination between the production units is extremely necessary.
Total Quality Management
Emphasizes that quality is produced rather than tested, and that the final quality is ensured by quality management in production. The inspection and control of quality in the production process is carried out in every procedure. Emphasis on the development of each employee's quality awareness, attention to quality inspection and control in each process to ensure timely detection of quality problems. If quality problems are found in the production process, depending on the situation, production can be stopped immediately until the problem is solved, so as to ensure that there is no ineffective processing of substandard products.
For the quality problems that arise, it is generally to organize the relevant technical and production personnel as a team, work together to solve the problem as soon as possible.
Team work
Team work (Team work). Each employee in the work is not only to carry out the orders of superiors. It is more important to actively participate in the role of decision-making and supporting decision-making. The principle of organizing the team is not entirely according to the administrative organization, but mainly based on the relationship between the business. Team members emphasize versatility and are required to be more familiar with the work of other staff members within the team to ensure smooth work coordination. The evaluation of the performance of team members is influenced by evaluations within the team. (This has more to do with Japan's unique personnel system.) The basic atmosphere of teamwork is one of trust, with long-term supervision and control as the main focus, while avoiding the need to audit every step of the work, thus improving work efficiency. The organization of the team is changeable, different teams are created for different things, and the same. People may belong to different teams.
Concurrent Engineering
Concurrent Engineering. The combination of conceptual design, structural design, process design, and final requirements during the design and development of a product to ensure that it is completed as quickly as possible and with the required quality. The work is carried out by the project team associated with it. The team members organize their own work during the process, but can provide feedback and coordinate the resolution of problems on a regular or ad-hoc basis. Feedback and coordination of the entire project is based on appropriate information system tools. The use of modern CIM technology assists in the parallelization of the project process during product development.
[edit]Comparison of Lean Production and Mass Production Management Ideas
Lean production, as a new management idea from the environment to the management objectives, and successful in practice, is not simply the application of one or two new management tools, but a set of management systems that are highly integrated with the corporate environment, culture, and management methods. It is a highly integrated management system with the company's environment, culture and management methods.
(1) Optimization of different scopes
The mass production method originated in the United States, is based on the United States of America's inter-enterprise relations, emphasizing market orientation, optimization of resource allocation, and each enterprise to the boundaries of the financial relationship to optimize their own internal management. And related enterprises, whether suppliers or distributors, are treated as rivals.
The lean production method takes the product production process as a clue, organizes the closely related supply chain, on the one hand, reduces the transaction cost in the enterprise collaboration, on the other hand, ensures the stable demand and timely supply, and optimizes the whole production system as an optimization goal.
(2) Different attitudes toward inventory
The inventory management of mass production emphasizes that "inventory is a necessary evil".
Lean production inventory management emphasizes that "inventory is the root of all evil".
The Lean approach views all inventory in production as "waste" and believes that inventory masks defects and problems in the production system. On the one hand, it emphasizes the guarantee of supply to production, and on the other hand, it emphasizes the requirement of zero inventory, so as to continuously expose the contradiction of the basic link in production and improve it, and continuously reduce the inventory to eliminate the "waste" generated by the inventory. Based on this, Lean Production puts forward the slogan of "eliminating all waste". Pursuing the goal of zero waste.
(3) Business control view is different
The traditional mass production system is based on the "employment" relationship between the two sides, business management emphasizes the principle of division of labor to achieve high efficiency of individual work, and strict business audit to promote and ensure that the audit also prevents the individual work of the enterprise to produce a negative effect. The negative effect of individual work on the enterprise.
Lean production originated in Japan and is y influenced by Eastern culture, emphasizing mutual collaboration and streamlining of business processes (including unnecessary verification work) in the division of labor - eliminating "waste" in business.
(4) Different views of quality
Traditional production methods regard a certain amount of defective products as the inevitable result of production.
Lean production, based on the decentralization of the organization and the collaborative view of people, believes that it is feasible to allow producers themselves to ensure the absolute reliability of product quality without sacrificing the continuity of production. The core idea is that the causes of such probabilistic quality problems are not themselves probabilistic, and that the pursuit of zero defects can be achieved by eliminating the production chain that creates the quality problems and "eliminating all waste from defective products".
(5) Different attitudes toward people
The mass production method emphasizes strict hierarchy in management. Requirements for employees to strictly complete the tasks assigned by their superiors, people are regarded as attached to the position of the "equipment".
Lean production, on the other hand, emphasizes personal intervention in the production process, and makes every effort to utilize human initiative, while emphasizing coordination, and evaluating individual employees on the basis of long-term performance. This approach views employees more as members of the business community than as machines. It gives full play to the subjective initiative of the grassroots.
[edit]Historical development process of the lean production method
In the early 20th century, from the creation of the first automobile production line by the Ford Motor Company in the United States, the large-scale production line has been the main feature of modern industrial production, which has changed the inefficient single-piece production method, and has been referred to as the 2nd milestone of the production method. The mass production method is to standardize, mass production to reduce production costs and improve production efficiency. This way to adapt to the U.S. national conditions at the time, the production of automobile production line, the car from a few rich people's luxury into a mass transportation, the U.S. automobile industry has grown rapidly into a pillar industry in the United States, and drive and promote the development of a large number of industries, including iron and steel, glass, rubber, electromechanical and even transportation services. Large-scale production in the history of production technology and production management is of great significance. But after the Second World War, society has entered a new stage of diversification of market demand, corresponding to the requirements of industrial production to the multi-species, small batch direction, the single-species, high-volume production of the weaknesses of the flow of production methods are becoming increasingly obvious. In order to comply with the requirements of the times, by the Japanese Toyota Motor Corporation pioneered the lean production, as a multi-species, small-lot mixed production conditions of high quality, low-consumption production method in practice, created. Lean production method in the practical application of Toyota's actual production requirements and was created, summarized a revolutionary way of production, known as "the machine that changed the world", is the third milestone of the human modern production method after the mass production method.
Overall, according to the formation process of the lean production method, it can be divided into three stages: the formation and improvement stage of the Toyota Production System, the systematization stage of the Toyota Production System (i.e., the proposal of the lean production method), and the innovation stage of the lean production method (rethinking the previous methods and theories, and putting forward new insights).
The Formation and Improvement Stage of the Toyota Production System
In 1950, a young Japanese engineer, Eiji Toyoda, went to Detroit for a three-month visit to Ford's Ruchi plant, which at the time was the world's largest and most efficient manufacturing plant. But Eiji Toyoda scrutinized every nuance of this huge enterprise, and when he returned to Nagoya, he and Neiichi Ono, who was a talented manufacturer, quickly came to the conclusion that the mass production method was not suitable for Japan. Because, firstly, Japan's domestic market was small at that time, and there were many varieties of automobiles needed, multiple varieties and small lots were not suitable for mass production; secondly, post-war Japan lacked a large amount of foreign exchange to buy western technology and equipment, and could not simply imitate the Ruchi factory and improve on it; and thirdly, there was a lack of a large number of inexpensive laborers. Thus, Eiji Toyoda and Neiichi Ohno started to innovate the production method that suited the needs of Japan. Ono Naichi first implemented some on-site management methods in the factories under his responsibility, such as visual management method, one person, multiple machines, U-shaped equipment arrangement method, etc., which was the germ of the Toyota Production System.
With the initial effectiveness of Ono's management methods, his status was gradually improved, and Ono's management was applied on a wider scale, and he gathered some people around him at the same time to further improve the methods. By observing and thinking about the production site, he proposed a series of innovations, such as the three-minute mold change method, site improvement, autonomy, the five-question method, the reorganization of the supplier team and partnership, and pull production. At the same time, these methods were continually refined to create the Toyota Production System for Japan.
After the oil crisis in the fall of 1973, Japan's economy declined to a negative growth rate, but Toyota not only gained a higher profit than other companies, but also increased its profit year by year, widening the distance between Toyota and other companies. As a result, the Toyota Production System began to receive attention and was popularized in Japan. It was recognized by the academic community, attracting some professors to study it and complete the systematization of its contents.
With the large-scale overseas planting of Japanese automobile manufacturers, the Toyota Production System spread to the United States, and was widely spread with its great effect in cost, quality, product diversity and so on. At the same time, and withstood the test of just-in-time supply, cultural conflict, more verified the suitability of the Toyota Production System, proving that the Toyota Production System is not only suitable for the Japanese culture, is universally applicable to a variety of cultures, a variety of industries, advanced production methods. For example, in the Toyota Production System, the most important thing is to stop the production line once a glitch or other problem occurs. However, in the U.S., once you stop the production line, you are fired without exception, because workers are not authorized to stop on the production line. Moreover, in the United States, a country of self-responsibility, in the event of misbehavior, will be held accountable. This is not only true in the U.S. automobile industry, but in other industries as well, so everyone is afraid to stop the production line. This is an example of the cultural differences between the two countries.
The systematization stage of the Toyota Production System - the formation of the Lean Production System
In order to further unravel the mystery of the success of Japan's automobile industry, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) raised 5 million dollars in 1985 to establish a program called the "International Motor Vehicle Program" (IMVP). "(IMVP) research program. Under the leadership of Professor Daniel "Ruth, organized 53 experts and scholars. From 1984 to 1989, spent five years on 14 countries nearly 90 automobile assembly plant site visits. Checked hundreds of public briefings and information． And a large number of Western production methods and Japan's Toyota production methods for comparative analysis, and finally in 1990, wrote a "machine to change the world" book, for the first time Toyota production methods named LeanProduction, that is, lean production methods. This research result was a sensation in the automotive industry, and set off a frenzy of learning about the Lean Production Method. Lean production mode, the Toyota production mode from the manufacturing field to expand to the product development, collaboration, sales services, financial management and other areas, throughout the entire process of enterprise production and management activities, so that its connotation is more comprehensive, more rich, more targeted and operable to guide the change in production methods.
Then in 1996, after four years of research in the second phase of the International Motor Vehicle Program (IMVP), the book Lean Ideas was published. Lean Thinking remedied the problem that the previous research did not provide much guidance on how to learn the Lean methodology, and the book further refined the Lean theory by describing the key principles necessary to learn Toyota's methodology and by using examples of action steps that can be followed in a variety of industries.
In this stage, the U.S. business community and academia conducted extensive study and research on the lean production method, put forward a lot of views on the original Toyota production method, a lot of additions, mainly by adding a lot of IE technology, information technology, cultural differences, etc. to improve the lean production theory, in order to make lean production more applicable.
The new development stage of lean production method
The theory and method of lean production is with the changes in the environment and the continuous development, especially at the end of the 20th century, with the deepening of the research and the theory of the wide dissemination of the more and more experts and scholars to participate in the phenomenon of the blossom of the phenomenon of the new theory of the method of the emergence of all kinds of endless, such as mass customization (mass customization) and lean production, the new theory and method, the new theory is not only the development of the lean production method, but also the development of the lean production method. A variety of new theories and methods have emerged, such as the combination of mass customization (customization) and lean production, cell production, JIT2, the new development of 5S, the new development of TPM, etc. Many large U.S. companies have integrated lean production into their production processes. Many large U.S. companies will be lean production methods and the actual combination of the company to create a management system suitable for the needs of the enterprise, for example: 1999 United Technologies Corporation (UTC) ACE management (Achieving Competitive Excellence), Lean Six Sigma management, Boeing's group think group, General Motors Competitive Manufacturing System (GM Competitive MFGSystem) in 1998. The essence of these management systems is to apply the idea of Lean Manufacturing and materialize its methods to guide each plant and subsidiary within the company to implement Lean Manufacturing methods smoothly. The implementation process of each tool is broken down into a series of charts and graphs, and employees only need to follow the charts and graphs of the requirements of the step-by-step implementation, and each tool corresponds to a set of criteria to evaluate the implementation of the situation, which can also be used for the parent company's assessment of subsidiaries.
At this stage, Lean thinking moved beyond its birthplace in manufacturing to spread and be applied as a general management philosophy across a wide range of industries, with successful applications in building design and construction, in the service industry, civil aviation and transportation, health care, communications and postal management, and software development and programming. The Lean system has been perfected through its application in the service industry, civil aviation and transportation, healthcare, communications and postal management, and software development and programming.
Cell production, first born in the late 20th century in the electronics assembly industry, refers to the production mode in which one or a few operators undertake and complete all the processes in a production cell, and some scholars refer to it as "cellular production" because it is like the cells in the human body. Some scholars call it "cellular production" because it is like the cells in the human body, which contain all the elements of metabolism and are the smallest unit of life. The cellular production method is based on manual work and does not use conveyor belts to move production objects, but also uses simple machinery and automated tools as needed, and has a coarse division of processes, with one or a few people completing all of the processes. Because the layout of the workstations used in the cellular production method is often U-shaped, much like that of an individual vendor's stall, it is also known in Japan as the "stall production method" (or "yatai method" in Japanese). The cellular production method can be divided into three specific forms: the one-person production method, the split method, and the itinerant method.
Lean Six Sigma is a management method obtained by combining the Six Sigma management method with the Lean production method, LeanSigma, which maximizes shareholder value by improving customer satisfaction, reducing costs, improving quality, speeding up processes, and improving capital investment. Six Sigma is a statistic of process or product performance, a goal of performance improvement towards perfection, and a quality management system that enables sustained leadership, near-perfection, and world-class performance. Six Sigma is a highly effective enterprise process design, improvement and optimization technique that evolved from the Total Quality Management (TQM) methodology and provides a range of new product development tools that are equally applicable to design, production and service. The Six Sigma approach focuses on treating all work as a process, using a quantitative approach to analyze the factors in the process that affect quality, and identifying the most critical factors to improve in order to achieve higher levels of customer satisfaction. Therefore, Lean and 6 Sigma should be integrated with each other, on the one hand, can overcome the Lean can not use statistical methods to manage the shortcomings of the process; on the other hand, to overcome the 6 Sigma can not significantly improve the speed of the process or reduce the shortcomings of the capital investment.