Lean manufacturing implementation: A 20step road map

Lean manufacturing is being utilized by businesses of all sizes today. Although it took a few years to
become mainstream, the success stories from mid-size to large corporations have pushed lean
manufacturing down to very small organizations.
Most of the large corporations employ a few lean experts. Many mid-size and most small businesses
do not have lean manufacturing expertise in the company. It is common that a few individuals have
attended a lean manufacturing seminar or read a few books, but lack the expertise to develop a road
map.
The reason most courses and seminars do not teach a road map is because the tools are best
applied to problems or bottlenecks, rather than forcing the tool use on the opportunity. For example, a
machine that sets up once per week in 30 minutes probably doesn't warrant a week of single minute
exchange of dies (SMED) activity.
However, a road map can be used with common sense. Lean manufacturing has been called commonsense manufacturing, although not always common practice.
Here are 20 steps that comprise a lean manufacturing road map:
1.
2.

Form team (mix of lean manufacturing and relevant business experience)

Develop communication and feedback channel for everyone

3.

Meet with everyone and explain the initiative

4.

Begin to train all employees (lean overview, eight wastes, standard operations, kaizen, RCPS,
PDCA)

5.

Facility analysis Determine the gap between current state and a state of lean

6.

5-S - It is the foundation of lean. Workplace organization is critical for any lean initiative

7.

TPM Begin Total Productive Maintenance early (used throughout lean)

8.

Value Stream Mapping Determine the waste across the entire system

9.

7 (or 8) waste identification Use with value stream mapping to identify system waste

10. Process mapping A more detailed map of each process

11. Takt time Determine need to produce on all processes, equipment
12. Overall equipment effectiveness and six losses Determine the losses on all processes and
equipment
13. Line balance Use, if necessary, with takt time and OEE
14. SMED Push setup times down to reduce cycle time, batch quantity and lower costs

15. Pull/one-piece flow/Continuous Flow Analysis Utilize kanban and supermarkets

16. Analyze quality at the source application Poor quality stopped at the source
17. Implement error-proofing ideas
18. Cellular manufacturing/layout and flow improvement Analyze facility and each process
19. Develop standardized operations Concurrently with SMED, line balance, flow, layouts
20. Kaizen Continue improving operations, giving priority to bottlenecks within the system
The specific implementation plan should be developed from the facility analysis. The analysis identifies
areas of opportunity in every area of the business, including sales, service, engineering, maintenance,
production, quality, shipping and administrative functions.
Some lean manufacturing projects within a lean initiative require the tools of Six Sigma to find the
improvement answers. The lean manufacturing team needs to be trained to understand when the lean
tools must be supplemented to either solve the problem or maximize the improvement.
Kaizen events may use all of the lean tools (and some Six Sigma tools) to meet the team's objective.
Kaizen events are conducted on an ongoing basis to achieve a state of lean. For example, a process
may need a quick throughput improvement. The kaizen blitz could include focused SMED and OEE
analysis. The kaizen might have an objective to reduce setup time from 80 minutes to 60 minutes in
four days.
It is important to keep an enterprise view with the analysis and road map. No single operation should
be improved at the expense of the entire system. For example, if a bottleneck is happening at Process
B, improving Process A prior to B only hurts the system worse. A larger-scale example is improving
throughput if shipping cannot handle the volume. Although many improvements cause bottlenecks
elsewhere, forcing a larger known problem is rarely a good idea.
The road map above is only one example. It could be shown with many different variations. However,
there is a logical sequence to many of the tools. Value stream mapping is almost always conducted
very early on in the process. The 5-S system provides a foundation for most other tools. TPM is large
and plays an important role in OEE improvement and, therefore, must be started early.
The key is to have a plan and get started. The path to lean will not be straight and it never ends. Don't
let the pursuit of perfection get in the way of being better today.