Lean manufacturing.

Have a little read: ... Manufacturing Engineering Assignment related to industrial visit Lean manufacturing is a term that is primarily associated with the automotive industry. It is the philosophy of achieving competitive manufacturing performance through the elimination of waste. Lean manufacturing has a number of techniques that are used to identify and eliminate waste. These techniques are the foundation of the lean manufacturing philosophy and are also used in many other industries. Toyota Seven Wastes The seven wastes originated in Japan, where waste is known as "muda". "The Seven Wastes" is a tool to further categorize "muda" and was originally developed by Toyota's Chief Engineer Taiichi Ohno as the core of the Toyota Production System, also known as Lean Manufacturing. To eliminate waste, it is important to understand exactly what waste is and where it exists. While products significantly differ between factories, the typical wastes found in manufacturing environments are quite similar. For each waste, there is strategy to reduce or eliminate its effects on a company, thereby improving overall performance and quality. The seven wastes consist of:- 1- Overproduction Overproduction is to manufacture an item before it is actually required. Overproduction is highly costly to a manufacturing plant because it prohibits the smooth flow of materials and actually degrades quality and productivity. The Toyota Production System is referred to as "Just in Time" (JIT) because every item is made just as it is needed. Overproduction manufacturing is referred to as "Just in Case". This creates excessive lead times, results in high storage costs, and makes it difficult to detect defects. The simple solution to overproduction is turning off the tap; this requires a lot of courage because the problems that overproduction is hiding will be revealed. The concept is to schedule and produce only what can be immediately sold/shipped and improve machine change over/ set-up capability. 2- Waiting Whenever goods are not moving or being processed, the waste of waiting occurs. Much of a product's lead time is tied up in waiting for the next operation; this is usually because material flow is poor, production runs are too long, and distances between work centres are too great. Goldratt (Theory of Constraints) has stated many times that one hour lost in a bottleneck process is one hour lost to the entire factory's output. Linking processes together so that one feeds directly into the next can dramatically reduce waiting. 3- Transporting Transporting products between processes is a cost incursion which adds no