7 wastes - Over-production

In lean manufacturing concepts, the top waste of the seven wastes is "over-production", but I consider the term of "over-production" was relatively closed to manufacturing industries, so I like to use the term of "Overabundance" to represent the true meaning of the stated waste. "Overabundance" is meaning that the supply is more than demand. This is the other end of JIT manufacturing where products are manufactured when a specified quantities required. Below, I listed out some questions for you to think about in different cases.

For product development, I called it in "over-design",

For Mobile phone, how many features of your owned mobile were never used?

For Software (CAD or office), how many functions of the software were never used in working?

For Digital Camera, how many features of your owned camera were never used?

All the cases above were in the same concept, "over-design"! Let us think one more question for the above cases, if we calculate the un-used features or functions in percentage, how much money we pay for the non-value-added features? Nowaday, total cost leading is a most important marketing strategy in commercial world. If a company is still suppling the product in over-design, it is no doubt that the cost of the product development was claimed on the expense of consumer, what is the affect of her competitive force?

For manufacturing, we called it in "over-production",

Why discount promotion was always found at the end of season in retail?
Why we need to write off the inventory when product change or at the end of product life cycle?
Why we have to handle many WIPs everytime when we change the product line?

When goods are manufactured without real demand for them the work in progress and inventory levels goes high. This ties up capital since the goods are in stock not making cash. If the manufacturer does not have the demand, they have to create it. This involves cost in the form of advertising costs, costs of discounts etc. on the other hand over production greatly reduces the flexibility of the system. If one process has manufactured extra items generally manufacturing needs to be carried out until the stock is over. This takes time and hence it is difficult to change from one to another product quickly. Problems of the system are hidden in inventory. Problems will never get highlighted and hence will never get removed from the system.

For services, we called it in "over-service",
How many channel you never watch in the package of cable TV program?
How many features you never use in the package of mobile service combination?

Nowaday, the service provider are always using the embedded service package to attract their customer. In a normal package of service, they covered all basic features no matter in mobile service or cable TV programme service. The most important point is that they counted all cost of the different features no matter you used or not. We have to pay on them once we signed the contract. I am sure that we can not 100% uitilize all the services and meant it caused waste in our payment. You can give them the basic service they are looking for and then if they are interested can provide the additional services. In this case there is no need for the service provider to be ready with all the possible services at any given time. They can call for the expertise when the customer wants it. Here you will save your money since you are not going to invest in something there is no real requirement. On the other hand customer will pay for what he is actually using.

7 wastes - introduction

In Japanese, "Muda" is meaning waste. There are 7 kinds of waste targeted by the lean manufacturing. From here, I will summarize them and give some possible solutions or methods to eliminate those non-value-add process. Before reading this post, we should have enough knowledge of value-added and non-value-added concept, refer to the VA & NVA 1 and VA & NVA 2.

1. Over-production; takt time concept is not considered in the case so they produce more than demand. From lean concept, this is the top waste of a company, takt time studing and JIT can solve this problem.

2. Motion; process is not good design so that operator will waste more time to handling the process. The operator needs to move or turn himself around and around to handling the process. We always use brain-stroming in Kaizen event to improve the work station process.

3. Waiting; because process flow is not balanced, too many motion in last process but waiting in next process. We need to record the process cycle in all process and well balancing in takt time analysis.

4. Conveyance; it means the WIP move a long way to next station, but it is totally not necessary. Re-design the process layout by 2P event is a effective way to solve the problem.

5. Processing Itself; the process station is not design or choose in the best way. As we knew, it always has many methods to produce the same product, the best way is also use brain-stroming in Kaizen event to choose the best method.

6. Inventory (raw material); because production plan issue or the cooperation of supplier, we have too many raw material inventory. At this moment, lean suppy chain and JIT are the ways to solve the problem.

7. Correction (rework & scrap); if the product or WIP is not made in good quality, rework or scrap is the only way to correct them. In lean concept, we need to make it good at once. For this waste, we need to choose the suitable tools to solve the problem in different causes. TPM is the most important factor in this case.

For 7 kinds of waste, they affected the productivity, cash flow and ontime delivery. Those factors are the root of NVA process or material flow. As my experiance, lean manufacturing concept is a best way to eliminate them. Offcause, use lean manufacturing tools skillfully is a very important element for improvement.

Lean manufacturing is popular!

From industryweek: Ranking Continuous Improvement Methods

Nowaday, the lean manufacturing is used to be continuous improvement method so popular. If we included the ranking of "Lean and six sigma" and "Toyota production system" to lean manufacturing, we can say more than half of the companies are using "Lean" mothod!

中秋节快乐

明月几时有
把酒問青天
不知天上宮闕
今夕是何年
我欲乘風歸去
唯恐瓊樓玉宇
高處不勝寒
起舞弄清影
何似在人間
轉朱閣 低綺戶 照無眠
不應有恨何事長向別時圓
人有悲歡離合
月有陰晴圓缺
此事古難全
但願人長久
千里共嬋娟

我亲爱的朋友,中秋快乐!

Mindset of lean

Refer to the above mind map, the structure of lean manufacturing can be disassembled as below,

1 Lean spirit
1.1 Continuous improvement
1.2 Respect to people

2 Objectives of lean
2.1 Eliminate waste
2.2 Create value

3 Main duty of lean
Create a continuously flow of process, material and information.

4 Lean tools
4.1 Standardization and Standard works
4.2 Just in time (JIT) and Pull system
4.3 Mistake proofing and autonomation
4.4 Visual management and Kanban system
4.5 OEE and TPM
4.6 5S
4.7 Tact time
4.8 Value-added and non-value-added, 7 wastes

If we need to describe LEAN in simply, I would like to describe that as,

"Continuous improvement and Respect to people are the spirits of lean. All the actions must be taken under the guideline. The improvement activities are carry out through setup the continuously flow to eliminate the different kinds of wastes, and use the saved resource to create value. During setup the continuously flow, it needed to apply different kinds of lean tools. "

思维图是一种帮助理解及记忆的工具,最近因为要协助各部门加深了解精益生产的概念与结构,已绘制一个精益生产思维图如上.

思维图解释:
于图的上部,代表精益生产的最主要两个精神,即是(一).持续改善;(二).尊重人性(以人为本);这种精神必须贯通整个精益生产的运作,才能有效的发挥其优点.
于图的中部,从左到右代表从精益生产推动开始,以建立一个无间断的流程为手段,以达到精益生产的两个主要目的.(一)消防浪费;(二)创造价值.
于图的底部,就是代表各种用以建立无间断流程的主要工具,其中各项工具已于日常生产运作中应用,如全员生产维护,快速换模系统,防错系统,自动化,目视管理,看板系统,拉运系统,生产预备,生产均衡化及标准化等.而各工具之间,亦起了紧密的协同作用.若无间断流程欠缺了这些工具,都不能达到理想中的要求.

各位,若能理解此思维图的意义,基本上对于精益生产就有一定程度的理解了.对于以后各位推动精益生产亦有不少帮助.