When you hear the word “lean” what do you think about? Usually that term brings to mind an image of a piece of steak that has no fat. It might also bring the image of someone who works very hard in the gym to get that perfect look of rippling muscles. In any event it is an image of someone or something that has only pure resources available for getting a job done very efficiently. In lean manufacturing it is that operation that produces only what is required. A lean operation will produce only what the customer demands. There is no process performed just for the sake of creating a product that has not been demanded by either an external or internal customer. The lean manufacturer will not produce products to fill up a warehouse. The absolute minimum of resources are allocated to the production of high quality products for customers in the quantity that is demanded, when that quantity is needed.
Some companies think of “resources” as only the raw materials that are used to create products for customers. That is only partly true in the case of the resources that are considered in lean manufacturing. Resources in lean manufacturing include manpower, processes, raw materials, time and any other input that is required to make a product. As any type of manufacturer, small or large, you must think of lean manufacturing as the mindset that your whole company has about creating products. It is truly a “top-down” approach to manufacturing in that the head of the company will set the culture of how the business will operate. Managerial theory states that the approach that the head of the business takes to the way that the business will operate permeates the entire business. If the head of the company has a lean approach to the way the products are made, then this will permeate the culture of the manufacturer. Lean has to be a company policy that is “a way of life” for a business.
To transition toward a lean operation, the company must scrutinize all business processes for full efficiency then apply the lean criteria including manufacturing automation. Just like the steak that has no fat, the lean criteria states that all activities, movements, resources, and actions that do not contribute to the final product are eliminated from operations. Lean manufacturing cannot be instituted in a production operation by automating the filling work station on a production line and not applying the lean criteria to the other work processes in the whole production operation. The movement of raw materials unnecessarily in the warehouse, the extra handling of bottle caps on the production line, and the extra cotton inserted in each filled bottle are all candidates for elimination once the lean criteria is applied.
Employees throughout the business have to understand that the lean approach to business will benefit them as well as the bottom line of the company. An important input into the process of moving toward a lean operation must include the suggestions for improvement from all layers of employees from the board room to the production line. Management must prioritize the processes in the operation so that the most critical processes reviewed for movement toward a leaner operation. Committees must be formed to evaluate processes for the application of the lean criteria. (See “Start Your Approach to Automated Manufacturing”) Those individual employees that have “hands on” experience with operations will undoubtedly have excellent ideas on how to improve processes they work with everyday.
One of the pillars of a lean operation is the minimization of cost and maximization of efficiency. Manufacturing automation fits quite neatly into this scenario for a lean manufacturer. If you look at a list of the benefits of a manufacturer becoming lean, a great number of these are also benefits of manufacturing automation. So lean and automation are first cousins if not twin brothers. A list of some of those benefits are as follows:
- Shortened lead times
- Decreased operating costs
- Increased profits
- Increased sales revenue
- Improved quality of products
- Increased employee retention
- Increased employee morale
- Improved customers satisfaction
- Improved customer goodwill
- Decrease of inventory
- Shortened inventory cycles
- Improved delivery times
- Improved supplier relations
- Decreased rework and scrap
When you examine in detail each one of these list items you can see that being lean really means also being automated. It would be very difficult for a manufacturing operation to achieve the maximums and minimums that are on this list without manufacturing automation. There may be some partial improvement in these listed areas if a company desired to become a lean operation without manufacturing automation. It can be understood that decreasing operating costs, increasing profits, and increasing sales revenue could be done if a company strove to be lean without manufacturing automation. But the actual maximization of profits and sales revenues and the minimization of operating costs could be attained if the company also applied manufacturing automation to their manufacturing processes.
Our consulting engineers can answer any questions that you might have about the automation of your business or they can supply you with a no-obligation quote for automation. If you have questions about automation or you would like to request a quote for the automation, please click the “Request a Quote” button below and fill out the form to submit your question or request.
