Lean production drives you to keep on investigating the issues until they have been dispensed with. Do more with less, reduce production lead times with rapid responses to changes in demand by allocating assets and planning production efficiently.
Root cause analysis and cross-functional teams are used to prioritize the problems so that the important ones are corrected first. With connected systems, any disturbance or change in the process is instantly reflected in other processes. For example, if a customer cancels an order, it is automatically seen in the production plan and the material flow without any manual work.
By incorporating a just-in-time philosophy into your supply network you can make faster deliveries to the customer and decrease your costs too.
Just-in-time or JIT is an important part of lean production. Lean production is about eliminating all forms of waste, which does not add value in the production process and supply chain. JIT is a manufacturing philosophy with the underlying idea that production should be pulled through rather than pushed through. Production starts only once an order has been placed and stocks are delivered only when they are needed. With just-in-time planning, you need fewer products in your inventory. A smaller inventory means less space needed and this means lower costs.
Customers are constantly expecting faster deliveries and specialized products. This puts pressure on all operations. Typically, there is a lot of waste – non-value-adding work – in the product’s journey from order to manufacturing and to delivery. Much of the waste is related to information management, poorly managed operations, and errors.
The fundamental ideology behind warehouse management systems (WMS) and manufacturing execution systems (MES) is the automatization of information flow (getting rid of paperwork, double data input etc.). The digitalization of your processes provides real-time data and reduces any mistakes and errors. Lead times from order to delivery become shorter and the customer gets their goods faster.