Lean Manufacturing

REDUCING MANUFACTURING COSTS TO ITS OPTIMAL VALUE BY MEANS OF LEAN MANUFACTURING

Almost every manufacturing firm is using more resources than those absolutely necessary; and almost none of them are aware of it. Even knowing this is true, the difficult question to answer is “what is the boundary dividing necessary from excessive resources?”. Excessive labor, inventory, machinery or scheduled man-hours add to overhead costs; and in the end, affects the bottom-line. Besides, when they are close to have the right amount of resources available, then it becomes difficult to balance inventory, workload and service level.

WASTE is every excessive resource in the company, and making that waste visible to eliminate it is the goal of all the so called Lean Manufacturing Tools and Systems. The proper solutions for the right problem will lead to significant improvements in Quality, Cost and Lead Time. With over 30 years of experience from U.S. and Japanese automotive industries, AVG will help management to deeply understand and create a successful change that will impact the bottom-line. of your business.

...A little more about Lean

We perform...

LEAN ASSESSMENT

Implementing just the right tools needed, no more. Change is managed by snipers, not shooting shotguns. Design the strategy before implementing it.


RESULTS ORIENTED KAIZEN

Focused mostly 3 to 5 day workshops to implement a solution, leading to increased productivity and organizational knowledge.


TRAINING

A sustained Lean System requires a team of leaders that internally challenge the status quo and lead the company to change. Training will provide standardize the language of change among stakeholders


About Lean Principles

Mastering the best process would result in producing the best outcome

There is a common element among all organizations; whether they are a manufacturing company, a construction business, a restaurant, a hospital, or a school, all have one core item in common: they all have processes, and so it is recognized by International Standards like ISO9001. Even if they are not documented, there is always some “way” to perform work.

Process analysis and process improvement is originally known from its roots in manufacturing, but when Lean Manufacturing, ISO9001, and Total Quality Management started to be well known as best practices, their principles started to be implemented outside the manufacturing industry. Mastering the best process would result in producing the best outcome for any business.

Lean Manufacturing is a system of principles and tools aimed to analyze and improve processes’ productivity to reduce processing costs and lead time, and in the end, to have only the essential resources available within the company.

Similarly, as the human body, companies’ processes suffer from diseases. Japanese Lean Manufacturing has classified those diseases in three categories:

  1. Muri (overload),
  2. Mura (instability or variation) and
  3. Muda (Wastes or excesses).

All Lean Manufacturing and Six Sigma Tools, which are so popular nowadays (such as SMED, 5S, Pokayokes, or the Kanban system), are “medicines” for specific diseases: we call them “Kaizen Capsules.” Like all diseases, not all medications are appropriate for every single person. So the best way to implement Lean Manufacturing Principles and Tools is to record and observe all the symptoms in a medical record (the assessment) to validate the existence of a problem before “prescribing medications.” Following this diagnosis, the action plan for the following months is designed, in which the proper tools for the existing problems will be implemented.

Lean Manufacturing is based on continuous organizational learning through the repeated and systematic solution of problems through activities of small groups called “Kaizen Events” that cure the diseases, supported by the right tools. So, Lean Manufacturing is systematically analyzing the current status of core processes in order to make Muri, Mura, and Muda visible so they can be eliminated.

Based on experience, when function analysis is teamed up with the identification of waste to analyze processes, the results achieved can be and are astounding. Team members often surprise themselves with the results that they can achieve by applying these techniques.