Lean manufacturing and simplification of process

Most of the organizations in today’s highly competitive business environment is been forced to do better in terms of price, quality, delivery, environment and society. This has made manufacturers and service providers to explore the possibilities of improvement. So managers and executives are very busy nowadays of identifying problems and improving their organizations. In the process most of the organizations have introduced many controls, processes and ERP and so on. This actually will help most of the organizations to achieve the efficiencies they are looking for in short term. But in long term so many controls, processes and managing principles makes it very difficult to maintain and will fall apart eventually.

On the other hand lean manufacturing uses a unique approach to this. They look at the root causes and treat those root causes. Simplifying the processes is one key success factor of lean. Their problem solving methodology is simple. Go and See it for you is one of lean manufacturing’s very important methods of solving problems. This will reduce the need for many complex computer programs and hardware. This will make the decision makers more involved in the process. Finding of root causes is done with the technique called “ask why five times”. Simply people will go to the place where the problem has occurred and will find out the root cause for that problem. Simple isn’t it? No need for computers, long hours of work. People can identify the place where that problem occurred by simply looking at the factory premises. This is known as visual controlling.

When we think about any complex process it is not the process which is complex, but the methods we use in that process makes it complex. Simplify the process. This will make the life easier for everybody in the organization, from the shop floor worker to the CEO. This is one major differentiator of lean manufacturing and lean management to the traditional manufacturing and management.