The Lean process starts with understanding what the customers assign to a particular product or services. When an individual is not engrossed to the production, he/she can’t be able to understand the depth of the lean process. This is one of the most effective application to improve the business process and manufacturing.
Reducing cost and proper utilization of all the viable resources at appropriate places is what it aims at doing. That is why now there are many industries, apart from manufacturing who have stapled the Lean management process to be a tool in their business process for long-lasting results.
Here are 5 Principles of Lean Management
The lean management was introduced by Toyota initially, to reduce the waste manufacturing in their system. After the process became so successful, many manufacturing industries across the world embraced the technique. The main objective of the lean process remained the same all the way- to remove waste from the system and remove everything that doesn’t add value.
To understand the methodology better, you must be known to the 5 principles taught in the Lean Six Sigma Certification:
Value: Values determination is a customer-centric approach. It is the point of view of the customer towards a particular product or services. This is what determines what a customer would like to pay. By establishing value, an organization be able to create a price point, and the cost of production and the cost of placing the product to the market is determined adequately.
The consumer tries to eliminate the waste from the business process to deliver as the customer expect and retain satisfied customers.
Value Stream: The value stream defines the entire life cycle of a product. Once the value has been established, this is the next big step a company takes. Take from the raw materials required to the delivery of the manufactured product, value stream mapping is an eye-opening experience which helps in understanding all the needed actions to take a product through any process. The steps, materials and the process are mapped in one page for improving flow, and any measure that doesn’t add value is eliminated, even before implementation.
It is believed that every step of a process doesn’t add value. This principle is, at times, known as process re-engineering. This process helps the individual understand the business operation entirely and in a better way.
Flow: Once the waste has been identified and after the elimination of waste, the next step is to design the process flow. The process flow aims to get designed smoothly, without any interruption, delays or bottlenecks. The value-creating steps are outlined in tight sequence so that the product or service flow smoothly towards the customer.
The process may require to break down silo thinking and to become cross-functional across all the departments within an organization. This principle can be the most challenging part of the principles of lean management. But this is also the step to increase the productivity of an organization by 50 per cent or more.
Pull: If the flow of a process gets improved, the next is the time to market, which gets improved dramatically. It helps in delivering the product as it is needed. The terms mean that the customers can pull the product from the manufacturer as they needed. As a result, the manufacturer doesn’t have to make products in advance, and there is no interruption of stockpiling, managing or creating expensive inventory.
Perfection: To start with the lean management, the first 4 steps are considered to be great, but the 5th or the last one is the most important among all. The manufacturer needs to remember that, lean is not a static system, and it involves continuous implementation of lean. As per the Six Sigma Black Belt Certification and the lean experts, the process is not really lean, until it goes through numerous value stream mapping
TAKEAWAY: The objective of Six Sigma certification and the lean principles are to get quality in the product or service. The quality of any service or product is defined to be equal with customer satisfaction.
