There are many differing names for lean manufacturing and lean management, but they all have one thing in common. They are attemptting to make the process of manufacturing more efficient. That's it. That is the main goal, to become more efficient. Instead of raising the price of the product to increase profit or using cheaper, less quality components, you have to get more efficient.
Lowering the cost to produce the product by lowering the cost of labor, materials and waste is the way to achieve this goal. You can't just cut costs by letting people go or taking shortcuts. It might work in the short term, but eventually it will catch up to you. You want to go about the process of leaning up your company or organization by taking a close look at the processes involved. The process stream is the entire process from start to finish, but it can usually be broken down into smaller, self-contained processes that can be examined. There is usually something that sticks out, that is apparent to everybody that it is a wasteful process, but that just hasn't been fixed.
Now is the time to fix your inefficient processes. It is now time to make the changes and stop wasting time and energy on inefficient processes. But how can you on identify and then fix all of your problems? It will take some time, and it will take some work. And remember that you can not do it yourself. It will take some team work and it will take a team of people working together to get there. It will not only be up to management to undertake the problem solving and implementation. You must put together a representative group of all departments involved, from low level workers to upper management.
It should also include people from other departments and with different levels of competence and experience. Ideally, you should have someone on the team that has been through a process like this before. People with experience can be a very useful tool for a challenge like this.
Not until the group is together and the team members are picked should the actual changes and problems be identified. Remember, differing opinions and viewpoints might see things differently and what seemed like a big problem in one department might have a simpler solution than once thought.
More Information:
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six sigma training is relevant to any organization, and can help you along in your current or prospective career path. To learn more log onto mbajournal.org.
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