Lean Manufacturing Consultants - The Holistic View
Lean Manufacturing Consultants
Lean manufacturing consultants understand that performance improvement is not just about being more efficient (doing things right), but equally about being more effective (doing the right things). As any organisation develops over time, it changes incrementally. Small changes are made here and there, which seem appropriate in the context of the immediate environment in which they’re made, but as an organisation grows bigger it becomes increasingly difficult to ensure that the small improvements made at a local level don’t affect the business negatively as a whole.
Example of A Non-Holistic Improvement
For example, at one time if a manufacturing process had a long change-over time, the received wisdom was to produce longer production runs of the different varieties of products, so that the proportion of non-productive time spent changing the machine over was proportionately lower. That, it was argued, made the manufacturing process more efficient. However, by extending the time spent producing each component variety on that manufacturing process, the flow of any one batch of products through it, was delayed by the longer run times for all other components produced by it. In businesses where this practise has developed over time, it’s not unusual to find that batches of components which have to pass through a series of similar manufacturing processes with long changeover times and much longer run times, take much longer to flow through from start to finish. Lean manufacturing consultants know that this causes an inflation of component manufacturing lead times, which means that more (very expensive) finished goods inventory has to be held in order to satisfy irregular customer demand patterns. Furthermore, because components take longer to produce, there is a temptation to release work to be manufactured earlier to try to get more work through. That doesn’t help either. It simply means that the amount of work-in-progress increases, which brings with it an equivalent increase in manufacturing lead times, and the need to hold even more finished goods inventory. Not long after this, the only way to get product through the process is to hire more people to “chase” the components that are late through the process. What seemed a sensible idea in isolation, turns out to be the beginning of a nightmare for the business, because a sub-system has been optimised at the expense of the performance of the entire system.
Lean Manufacturing Consultants Bring Holistic Improvement
In contrast then, lean manufacturing consultants, are trained to take a system-wide view, to ensure that improvements benefit the entire system, not just a sub-system at the expense of the whole. In the case of the above example, lean manufacturing consultants would concentrate on minimising the change-over times of bottleneck manufacturing processes using an approach like "SMED" (Single Minute Exchange of Die). When using this approach lean manufacturing consultants divide the activities during a changeover into those which can be performed off-line (whilst the machine is producing product) in advance of the changeover (without slowing down production) and those which must be performed whilst the machine is idle. An easy first step is to ensure that everything that can be done in advance of the changeover is done, so that the machine is idle only for the minimum amount of time. Any activities which are normally performed when the machine is idle will often be analysed carefully by lean manufacturing consultants to see if they can be converted into off-line activities. Often with only some simple improvements to housekeeping and some minimal "low cost/no cost" improvements to the way in which it is conducted, changeover times can be reduced to "single minutes" (less than ten). That of course, means that batch sizes can be minimised, and material flow through the factory becomes more fluid and less log-jammed. Finish goods inventory can be minimised without risk to customer schedules and some products can even be made to order. And that army of "chasers"; well the need to chase anything is minimised.
The SMED approach is just one of many lean manufacturing tools and techniques. For a more comprehensive overview see our article: Lean Manufacturing.
Using Lean Manufacturing Consultants to Improve Planning & Control Systems
Shortages are often one of the biggest challenges for any manufacturing environment. They can dramatically drive up manufacturing lead times & work in progress (WIP) as manufacturing works on what can be produced, rather than what should be produced.
When this happens of course, as lean manufacturing consultants know, excessive WIP unnecessarily drains precious cash and there can also be a risk of getting into a vicious lead-time inflation cycle: i.e. extended manufacturing lead-times mean that there will be pressure to launch new orders to manufacturing earlier to hit promised delivery dates, this in turn adds to WIP and extends lead times further, which encourages the launching of more manufacturing orders earlier etc. In environments like this (with so lots of supply chain planning and control "noise"), it is usual for there to be significant resource inefficiencies, particularly as demand for resources peaks and troughs, rather than being smooth.
In environments where more traditional MRP "push" type control systems are used, unless BOMs are reliable, supplier lead-times are reliable (normally subject to considerable variability) AND inventory is >95% accurate then the "garbage in - garbage out" maxim applies, and the average MRP system will simply create more problems, albeit in an automated manner. For MRP to work well lean manufacturing consultants advocate that it has to be configured smartly. Even when this has been achieved, MRP is a very data hungry beast. When implemented properly it can cost much more in labour than clients often expect to pay, to keep it fed with the right diet of accurate data. When this realisation is reached its often mooted that "bar-coding is probably the solution", but this is often a misconception. Barcoding normally only adds yet another layer of complexity to an already complex change management challenge.
In such cases Executive Interims' lean manufacturing consultants know that its best to first stand back from the problem and assess the situation holistically. To do this it is first necessary to segment the portfolio of sub-assemblies, components and materials, and then focus the most appropriate procurement and production control systems using a "horses for courses" approach. Experienced lean manufacturing consultants know that its better to simplify the problem rather than to try to develop increasingly complex planning and control systems to fit a complex manufacturing operation. This more holistic "horses for courses" approach to the selective application of planning and control systems, whether for managing manufacturing or supplier schedules, offers the most realistic way of addressing shortage problems. Executive Interims' - lean manufacturing consultants ' have considerable expertise in this regard.
Lean Manufacturing Consultants in Non-Manufacturing Environments
Although it may not seem obvious at first, many of these principles can be applied equally by lean manufacturing consultants to office based processes, where for example pieces of paper are grouped into larger rather than smaller batches before being transferred to the next person in the paper flow. See our article: Implementing Lean Manufacturing in Non-Manufacturing Environments.
Other Lean Manufacturing Articles
Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice
In addition to providing interim management services, Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice provides clients with consultants formerly from "Big Four" consultancy firms, including:
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Executive Interims - Supply Chain Practice is a specialist provider of supply chain consultancy and interim management services. If you'd like to know more about what our lean manufacturing consultants can do for your business don't hesitate to contact us to explore the subject further.
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