Lean Manufacturing Technology Resource Center

Many companies ask, isn’t Lean Manufacturing really just about business procedures? Although it starts with making procedural changes to the way you run your business and conduct activities on the shop floor, it can be best sustained as an initiative when it is supported by a Lean business system used by your employees every day.

Infor ERP VISUAL supports a variety of production scheduling methodologies, including MRP, Finite Capacity Scheduling (APS), and Theory of Constraint Scheduling.  The most recent VISUAL scheduling option is Lean Scheduling, which greatly simplifies the process of managing shop orders.  Lean Scheduling employs a “pull” based methodology, only focusing on true customer demand and actual orders.  Our customers have found the Lean Methodology to be easier to implement and easier to maintain within their plant. Lean Scheduling has enabled many of our customers to realize significant business benefits, including: improved on-time delivery performance; significantly reduced lead times; freed up production capacity and inventory reductions.  

Visit our resource links to learn more

          Resource Links:

           • How to get started with a Lean Initiative
           • Critical Success Factors with Lean
           • Lean Results
           • Additional Lean Resource Links
           • Attend a Lean Webinar

How to get started with a Lean Initiative

Getting started with a transition to a Lean organization should start from the top of the organization, since a fundamental change in the corporate culture must be made in the process. Therefore, there must be commitment from the CEO level of the company.  Only the CEO can establish and communicate a clear vision for all employees to understand the benefits to them personally as well as to the organization as a whole. With this commitment, the mindset of measuring performance must shift from measuring each individual department or discrete task and unit to measuring performance across departmental boundaries, and measuring the end-to-end delivery of services and products across the organization.
Some common issues that manufacturers experience prior to making the transition to Lean include:

•           Long production lead times in spite of available capacity
•           Once released to WIP, parts tend to be idle 90% of time on the floor
•           Cost and Price pressures are driving margins down
•           Poor on-time customer delivery performance to
•           Not working on the "right things at the right time"
•           Not having material when you need it - kits are robbed for hot orders

In process of changing to a lean approach to shop floor production control, there are four simple changes that you can make in your operations to begin achieving results:

•           Reduce WIP by eliminating the premature release of material.
•           Create and manage buffers on the floor to manage "Murphy's Law"
•           Dynamically align Lot Sizes with true demand (Pull system)
•           Prioritize work using an easy to understand method
With decades of experience on our staff, our experts in lean concepts, technology, and business process improvement, we can help you assess whether lean scheduling makes sense for your organization.

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Critical Success Factors with a Lean Implementation

CEO Commitment: There are a few Critical Success Factors (CSF) that need to be considered in a lean implementation.  First and foremost is the commitment from the CEO level of the company to endorse the project.  This commitment must be made in active participate throughout the planning process as well as the on-going implementation and go-live phases. If employees do not see sustained commitment from the top of the company, it could cause the effort to lose momentum.

Employee Support: Employee buy-in and commitment is another CSF, as their daily routine will change. Many shop floor employees may be used to grouping similar jobs together in order to minimize set-ups, or producing extra quantities that will likely be needed at another time. Their activity will be driven directly from customer specific orders that at first may not seem to be as efficient as their previous production routine. However, in the long run, their ability to focus on customer specific demand, in a pull based philosophy, will free up additional capacity to work on other customer specific orders.  All of which will help to increase throughput, and ultimately increase profitability.

Shift in Accounting Practices: Another critical area to adapt to the lean philosophy is the finance department. Lean accounting dictates organizing costs by each value stream, and changing inventory valuation techniques along with modifying financial statements to include non-financial information, such as: lead times, scrap rates and on-time delivery performance. Inventory valuation, costs and inventory turns will undergo significant change using a lean strategy and lean accounting methods. This is a result of the focus shifting to manufacturing only to customer orders. Inventory costs should decrease significantly under a company-wide lean initiative. Central to this shift is adopting a costing model that suits the lean philosophy, moving from standard and average costs to actual costs (costs based on the resources actually used). A lean accounting approach also places greater importance on long term goals rather than short term ones, and focuses the organization on improving inventory turns, on-time delivery, customer satisfaction, and the reduction of defects and returns.

Technology: Ultimately, an organization’s ability to successfully adopt and extend lean across their entire supply chain requires not only organizational discipline and top level commitment, but also the right technology and the right professional services expertise. Infor has helped thousands of manufacturers successfully make the transition to lean, by applying a combination of best-in-class business application solutions, leading edge technology, lean business practice expertise, and industry experienced professionals. As an experienced lean solution provider, Infor understands the value that a supply chain wide lean initiative can bring to an organization, but also understands the challenges of making that transition a reality. By building greater trust and improved communication between internal and external participants, the organization as a whole can take the first step to improving quality, increasing efficiency, decreasing operational costs, and boosting profitability. As a result there will be an opportunity for increased customer satisfaction, improved employee morale and retention, and a newly found ability for increased capacity to grow the business. Given the accelerated pace of business change and global competition today, the lean philosophy is a business practice every organization should be considering in their business planning process.

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Lean Results

Lean Scheduling has enabled many companies to realize significant business benefits from a lean project.  Coupled with Lean best business practices manufacturers can improve their on-time delivery performance; significantly reduced lead times; and free up production capacity and reduce inventory levels. Lean Scheduling is different from any other lean methodology in that it addresses both make-to-order AND make-to-stock (or hybrid) manufacturing environments, and does not require you to reorganize your entire shop floor to make it work.

Customer Results include:

"We are shipping 98% on time, including rush orders, and in some product lines, we are at 100%?"

Tom King, President
Thermo Fab

"We've lowered our in process and finished goods inventory basically in half"

Mike Platt, President
Platt Luggage

"Due to a 50% reduction in leadtime, we are able to capture sales that we were not able to capture before"

Jeff Carignan, Vice President,
Instrument Technology Inc.

"We're using a lot less labor now to produce the same output"

Jim Luebke, Owner
Advanced Tooling Specialists

"We've had the best shipping month in 9 months, and we did not have to perform any overtime to make that happen?"

Traci Tapani, Owner
Wyoming Machine

Manufacturers typically have experienced the following issues prior to their lean initiative:

•           Long production lead times in spite of available capacity
•           Once released to WIP, parts are idle 90% of time on floor
•           Cost and Price pressures driving margins down
•           Poor on-time delivery to customers
•           Not working on the "right things at the right time"
•           Not having material when you need it - kits were robbed for Hot orders

There are four simple changes that you need to make in your operations to achieve these results:

•           Reduce WIP by eliminating the premature release of material.
•           Create and manage buffers on the floor to manage "Murphy's Law"
•           Dynamically align Lot Sizes with true demand (Pull system)
•           Prioritize work using an easy to understand method

Additional Lean Resource Links

For more information about Lean Scheduling and how it can help you to improve your business performance and profitability, check out the following resource links:

•  Achieving Lean Success - A Holistic Approach
•  The True Power of Lean Manufacturing
•  Supporting the Lean Value Stream with Technology Solutions
•  Accounting for Lean Success - Overcoming the barrier of traditional accounting in lean
   environments: Manufacturing Performance Institutee
•  Best Practices in Lean Manufacturing – Aberdeen Group
•  The Lean Strategies Benchmark Report – Aberdeen Group
•  Do more with less: The five strategies used by successful SMB
•  From Lean to Green – Understanding the Relationship Between Capacity and Sales
•  Simplified Market-Pull Scheduling (SMP) Lean Manufacturing Made Simple

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Attend a Lean Webinar

Synergy Resources hosts Lean Scheduling webinars on a regular basis.  Click on a link to register, or call for a one-on-one meeting or presentation.  Contact Donna LaMontagne or call Donna: 631.665.2050

            Upcoming Lean Webinars