Lean manufacturing: small steps for big goals. Lean system (Lean manufacturing) Lean methodology welcomes the constant exchange of ideas between employees

A book about lean production - a breakthrough approach to management and quality management that ensures long-term competitiveness without significant investment. The pioneer of this approach was Toyota, which achieved outstanding results thanks to its use.

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by liters company.

Lean Manufacturing Principles

Introduction

Lean manufacturing as a remedy muda

Muda. This is one Japanese word you just need to know. It sounds a little strange, doesn't it? But that's how it should sound, because muda means loss, waste, that is, any activity that consumes resources but does not create values. These are mistakes that need to be corrected. This is the production of products that no one needs (as a result of which finished products accumulate in mountains in warehouses). This is performing actions that you can completely do without. It is the movement of people and goods from one place to another without any purpose. This is a delay in the execution of a certain stage of the process due to the fact that the implementation of a previous stage is delayed. Finally, these are goods and services that do not meet consumer requirements.

Taiichi Ohno (1912–1990), CEO of Toyota, being the most ardent fighter against losses that the world has ever known, established seven types muda. We have added one more (5) . There may be other types muda. But no matter how many there are, it is difficult not to agree that muda is literally everywhere. Just look at how a simple working day proceeds in any typical organization. When you study this book, you will learn to see better muda, then you will find that there are so many losses around that you never dreamed of.

Luckily for us, there is Lean- an excellent means of combating muda. It helps you identify value, arrange the activities that create it in the best sequence, get the job done without unnecessary interruptions, and do it more and more efficiently. That's why it's called lean manufacturing. thrifty, making it possible to do more with less—less human effort, less equipment, less time, and less manufacturing space—while getting closer to delivering exactly what the consumer wants.

Lean manufacturing allows for job satisfaction because it provides immediate feedback and people learn how their efforts resulted. muda is converted into value. In stark contrast to the practice of reengineering that was so popular until recently, lean manufacturing has the potential to create new jobs rather than simply cut headcount under the guise of efficiency efforts.

Determining Value

The starting point of lean thinking is value. The value of [a product, service] can only be determined by the end consumer. It makes sense to talk about it only if we mean a specific product (good or service or all together), which for a certain price and at a certain time is able to satisfy the needs of customers.

Value is created by the producer. From the consumer's point of view, this is precisely why the manufacturer exists. However, for a number of reasons, it is very difficult for a manufacturer to determine exactly what the value of a product or service is. The presentations, given by business school-trained executives from American firms, focused heavily on stories about the organization, technology, core competencies, and strategic intent. Then, over lunch, the managers told us about competitors who were not making the desired profit and about their cost-cutting projects. These projects involved sophisticated ways to cut staff, extract additional profits from customers, and undercut suppliers. (Because we had always been associated with the concept of lean manufacturing, our interlocutors were very tempted to label their projects as “lean manufacturing” - they just wanted to.) For dessert, we were offered a portion of stories about official confusion and career problems in an era of total layoffs.

If from all these conversations we single out what worries people the most, it would be a specific product that the manufacturer believes the consumer should purchase at a certain price and thereby extend the life of the company in the market, as well as the way in which the quality can be improved products and increase production efficiency while simultaneously steadily reducing the main components of costs. The situation was significantly clarified by a few simple questions that we always asked management on occasion: “Can you imagine yourself in the role of a project developer and see how it changes from the concept development stage to the release of the product? Can you imagine yourself in the place of the order fulfiller who transforms the information received from the buyer into a finished product? Can you imagine how raw materials are turned into a physical product that then reaches the consumer? Finally, can you describe what will happen to you at each stage? After these questions there was usually silence. If we did not persist in getting answers, the topic faded into the background and all attention returned to aggregate financial indicators. The immediate needs of shareholders and the financial aspirations of senior executives were beginning to dominate the very real need to define and create value for the customer.

Having visited Germany some time ago, we found that there the understanding of value had otherwise been significantly distorted. For much of the time since World War II, CEOs of privately held or bank-controlled firms may not have paid much attention to short-term financial performance. They were happy to tell us about their products and processes. Even the most senior managers could describe in detail all the features of the production, which took them years to perfect.

But who, in the end, determined the value of products? Company engineers! In their opinion, the more complex the design and equipment that was used to make the product, the better for the production process, and even more so for the consumer. But where is the proof of this?

If we go further, this is what we get. The people who headed German firms, as a rule, were excellent technical specialists. To work “for real” meant for them to supply the product with various technical “bells and whistles”, which in fact were of no interest to anyone except these specialists themselves. In response to our comments, we heard the following objections: “The buyer will definitely want to take it, he just needs to explain everything well.” The “specialists” explained their failures by saying that “the buyer was not qualified enough to understand all the advantages of our wonderful product.”

A central feature of the crisis of German industry in the post-Cold War period was that the complex, unique products and sophisticated technologies championed by German engineers were not only expensive, but also often irrelevant to the real needs of consumers.

More recently, on a trip to Japan, we discovered another distortion in the understanding of value. When determining value, it was very important for the Japanese to decide where exactly it is created. Most executives, even at firms like Toyota (which, remember, was the originator of lean manufacturing), began the value determination process by asking how they could design and make a product locally [in Japan]. In this way, they tried to meet society's expectations of long-term employment and maintain stable relationships with suppliers. In fact, almost all consumers prefer products that are designed with local sensitivities. And this is very difficult to do, being far away. Many consumers want products made exactly as they ordered to be delivered to them immediately. If everything is delivered from the Land of the Rising Sun, this will not be possible. Consumers don't care where a product is designed and made. The main thing is how much they need it, why it is valuable to them.

The strengthening of the yen has made senior managers think that it is not profitable to make goods “at home, no matter the cost.” The financial resources required for the development of new products were gradually depleted. The current needs of employees and suppliers have taken precedence over the needs of customers, which, in fact, have always been the basis for the sustainable success of any company.

Apart from national characteristics (three of which we have just outlined, not counting others that exist in each country) (6), then we can say that the concept of value is distorted almost everywhere, where traditional organizations and technologies dominate, as well as outdated ideas about economies of scale. Managers around the world say: “We can do this with the equipment we have. If consumers don’t like it, we will lower prices or “make noise” (that is, we will organize a loud advertising campaign).” But in fact, the concept of value needs to be radically rethought from the consumer's point of view.

One of the best (and most impressive) examples of this misunderstanding of value comes from the modern airline industry. As long-time airline customers, we were able to record our observations and analyze how our understanding of value differed from what we saw around us. Our definition of value was very simple: get from one place to another safely, with minimal hassle, and at a reasonable cost. Airlines seemed to understand value differently. Their main goal was to make the most of their existing assets, even if that meant that in order to get from point A to point B, passengers would have to make a hell of a transfer. To somehow mitigate such inconveniences, airlines offered passengers various additional services such as lounges for senior management or various gaming systems built into each seat.

As I write this today, one of us has traveled a total of 350 miles to talk to a group of industrialists about lean manufacturing. From his summer home in Jamestown, in western New York, he had to get to Holland, Michigan, crossing the lake along the way. Eri. Both communities have small airfields, and it would be possible to open a direct inexpensive flight between them, but realistically he could choose either an extremely expensive charter from Jamestown to Holland (total travel time two hours), or the following option: first eight miles on highway to the airport in Buffalo, New York, then by air to Detroit (home to a huge Northwestern Airlines hub), where to connect to another flight to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and finally another forty miles by air highway to your destination.

At a minimal cost, such a trip took seven hours. Why shouldn't airlines like Northwestern Airlines (and its global partner KLM), as well as aircraft makers like Boeing and Airbus, use smaller planes in their quest to reduce costs and improve service, instead of increasingly increasing capacity on Airbuses? In this way, it is possible to increase the turnover of the aircraft fleet and make do with small airports (instead of the huge terminals the size of the Taj Mahal, which were built after airline deregulation). A similar thing happened in Europe and East Asia, but for political reasons, according to which the routes of all state airlines must pass through the capitals. One of those seven hours that passed on the way was spent taxiing the plane on the tarmac at the Detroit airport, and the second was spent waiting in the terminal building.

Some airlines and aircraft manufacturers are extremely aggressive in defending their understanding of value. This is because their managers start every day thinking about how to make the most efficient use of the expensive machines and airport infrastructure they already have, and how to apply existing engineering knowledge, tools and equipment to the production of other aircraft giants. An outdated idea of ​​efficiency leads them to think that the best use of assets and technology is to use expensive hubs to transport large numbers of people on large aircraft. This approach to calculating efficiency focuses on only two elements of the transportation process - aircraft and transfer centers. It is not surprising that in this case the vision of the situation as a whole is lost. From the point of view of value for the passenger, such calculations are “in the milk.”

Because this approach has prevailed in the United States for the past 15 years, passengers have lost all joy in traveling (because their understanding of value is very different from that of airlines), aircraft manufacturers have not been able to make enough money (since airlines cannot afford to buy new planes), and the airlines (except for Southwest and a few others, which, although they used larger planes, used a more sensible air travel strategy) fell into such a financial hole for a decade that they were not far from bankruptcy. Europe and parts of East Asia were in a similar situation.

Lean manufacturing must begin by defining value precisely in terms of a specific product that has certain characteristics and costs a certain price. All this must be done through dialogue with certain consumers without regard to the company’s existing assets and technologies. The way to achieve this is to use teamwork to rethink all the company's activities related to its products. It is also necessary to reconsider the role of technical experts (like those German engineers who saw only the situation within the company), as well as the geographical location of the enterprise itself. Clearly, no manager can do it all at once. However, it is very important to have a clear vision of what needs to be done. Otherwise, the understanding of value will inevitably be distorted.

In short, defining value is the first and most important step in organizing lean manufacturing. Producing the wrong goods or providing the wrong services in the right way is the surest way to create muda.

Defining a Value Stream

A value stream is a set of all actions that need to be performed in order for a certain product (product, service, or all together) to go through three important stages of management characteristic of any business: problem solving(from concept development and detailed design to release of the finished product), information flow management(from receiving an order to drawing up a detailed project schedule and delivery of goods), physical transformation(from raw materials to the finished product in the hands of the consumer)(7) . Determining the entire value stream for each product is the next step in building lean manufacturing, which is very rarely included in the process, but almost always shows how huge the value is muda.

All the activities that make up a value stream can almost always be divided into three categories: 1) activities that create value, such as welding a bicycle frame from pipes or flying a passenger from Dayton to De Moines; 2) actions that do not create value, but are inevitable due to a number of reasons, for example technological, such as checking the quality of welds or additional flights of aircraft to the transfer center ( muda first kind); 3) actions that do not create value, which can be immediately eliminated from the process ( muda second kind).

Let's give an example. When Pratt & Whitney, the world's largest manufacturer of aircraft engines, decided to describe its value streams for three types of engines, it discovered that the efforts of raw material suppliers to obtain ultra-pure metals were duplicated, and at great cost, by other firms downstream. (in particular, foundry production, when metal ingots were used to produce blanks for machining). Moreover, before a titanium or nickel ingot went into processing, its mass exceeded the required ten times. Ninety percent of the most valuable material was simply thrown away due to the fact that the ingots were originally made so huge. Foundry workers did not attach much importance to what final form the product would take. According to their calculations, they acted effectively. Although these engine types were not very different from other engine series or competitors' products, foundries began producing several different types of ingots, at considerable expense, to meet the exact specifications for each Pratt engine. Most of these actions can be eliminated painlessly and quickly, resulting in enormous savings.

How did such losses go unnoticed for decades in such a serious industry as aircraft manufacturing? Very simple. None of the four firms in the aircraft engine value stream, which consisted of smelting, foundry, processing and assembly, ever shared the specifics of their activities with the rest. This was partly due to privacy concerns, as firms feared that such information would be used by others to inflate prices. Often this was simply forgotten. All four scrutinized their own operations and never attempted to look at the entire value stream. But in such a flow, the actions of one company inevitably affected the actions of another. Last year they finally did it and discovered huge losses.

Thus, lean manufacturing must go further, beyond the confines of the firm, which serves as the standard budgetary unit throughout the world, and look at the whole situation, at the full range of activities that create a product: from concept through detailed design to the finished product; from application through ordering and scheduling to delivery; from raw materials mined far from the enterprise to goods held in the hands of the consumer. The organizational mechanism that enables all this is what we call the lean enterprise. It involves a continuous discussion of all participants in the process about how to form a channel through which the flow of value creation will flow, washing away all muda.

Wherever we first expressed the idea of ​​lean manufacturing, there were always cries that we should register a new enterprise, some kind of “virtual corporation”, a new form of vertical integration. In fact, exactly the opposite is needed. As individual firms outsource more work and do less themselves, it is vital that a voluntary coalition of stakeholders emerges to oversee the parts of the value stream, review each step of value creation, and exist exactly as long as the product itself exists. For products such as cars of a certain class, the development of which takes a long time, this period will be measured in decades. For products with a short life cycle, such as highly specialized software, this period will be less than a year.

Creating Lean Enterprises Necessarily will require a new way of thinking about the relationships between firms, the development of a few simple principles for regulating behavior in relation to each other, transparency of all stages of value creation so that everyone can check how everyone else is applying mutually established principles. The third part of this book is devoted to a discussion of these issues.

Organization of flow movement

Once the value has been accurately defined, the value stream map has been drawn up, and obviously unnecessary steps have been eliminated, it’s time to move on to the next thing. It is important to ensure that our value stream begins to move and bubble. And this requires a complete reorganization of ideas about how to organize work.

Having been born, we all come to the mental world, which consists of “functions” and “divisions”. It seems obvious to us that all activities should be grouped by type so that their implementation is more effective and management simpler. It is believed that to improve the efficiency of work within departments, everything should be done in batches. For example, in the claims department, we first process all claims from customers with last names starting with A, then with last names with B, and then move on to C. In the paint shop, we first paint all the green parts, then move on to red, and end with purple. Working in batches always involves long delays as the product must wait for the department to switch to the type of processing required in the next step. This approach is good because no one is loitering idle, and all machines are 100 percent loaded. This justifies the purchase of highly specialized, high-speed equipment. After all, that’s what the word “efficiency” means, isn’t it? It is very difficult, if not impossible, to see that this notion of efficiency is fundamentally flawed.

Just recently, one of us decided to conduct a little experiment. He asked his two daughters, ages six and nine, to come up with the best way to prepare for sending the monthly mail their mother sent out. The envelopes had to be folded, addressed, sealed, and stamped. After some thought, they joyfully said: “Dad, the first thing we need to do is fold all the envelopes. Then write down all the addresses. Then - seal the top and bottom of the envelopes. And only then stick on all the stamps.”

“Why not try differently? - Dad objected. – First, fold one envelope, seal it, write an address on it and attach a stamp? This way we won’t have to waste extra time and process each letter four times. Why not look at this task from the point of view of the letter itself, which wants to be sent as quickly as possible and at minimal cost?

They responded by arguing that it would be ineffective.

I was struck by the children's deep conviction that the best way to do work was to divide it into batches. Moving the letter from “workshop” to “workshop” along the desk seemed more appropriate than rethinking the process and making it more efficient by creating a continuous flow. It’s also amazing that the whole world thinks the same way as these little children!

Taiichi Ohno believed that the prevalence of this “batch and queue” mentality should be blamed on the early farmers, who, having forgotten the habit of hunters (one kill per trip), developed a way of doing work in batches and storing supplies (for example, harvesting once a year and dumping it to the granaries)(8) . Although it is quite possible that the habit of dividing work into batches is something innate, like many other illusions from the category of “common sense”, for example, the idea that time is constant (when in fact time is relative) or that space is not curved ( although in fact it is curved). We all need to overcome this tendency to divide the work into batches and perform it in departments, since there is a more efficient and reasonable way when the product, going from raw materials to the finished product, is processed continuously. To increase efficiency, it is necessary to focus not on the enterprise and equipment, but on the product and its needs. Thus, all the work of designing, ordering components and delivering the product must be carried out in one continuous flow.

Henry Ford, with a group of like-minded people, was the first to fully realize the potential of the flow organization. In the fall of 1913, he was able to reduce the labor required to assemble a Model T Ford by 90 percent by creating a continuous flow during the final assembly stage. He subsequently made another breakthrough in productivity by building all the machines that produced parts for the Model T in the correct sequence. Thus, he tried to create a flow all the way from the extraction of raw materials to the delivery of the finished car to the consumer. However, this production method was only special occasion. Ford's method only worked when producing volumes large enough to justify high-speed assembly lines for products that were assembled from exactly the same parts, models of which were produced unchanged for years. (The Model T was produced for nineteen years.)

In the early 20s, when Ford was the absolute market leader, dozens of its factories scattered around the world produced more than two million absolutely identical Model T cars.

After World War II, Taiichi Ohno and his colleagues, which included Shigeo Shingo(9), realized that if you need to make not a million products, but only a dozen or a hundred, then you need to create a continuous flow. For the production of small volumes of products this was quite a serious task (not private, but general case). Now, not one “powerful river”, but many “small streams” were responsible for the success of the business. Taiichi Ohno's team was able to create such a flow to produce small volumes of products, in most cases without resorting to assembly line assembly. Instead, they learned how to quickly change equipment from one product to another, and how to use “right” (miniature) equipment so that different jobs (such as stamping, painting, and assembly) could be done immediately, one after the other. The object being processed floated along a continuous stream.

The benefits of this type of work organization are easy to demonstrate. We have seen with our own eyes in North American as well as European factories how lean proponents have applied the approach kaikaku(which can be roughly translated as radical improvement) instead of the approach kaizen(continuous improvement). In one day, the production of one product was reorganized from working in batches in different departments to a continuous flow. Productivity has doubled, and the number of errors and defects has significantly decreased. Later in the book we will talk more than once about cases of such revolutionary reorganization of product development, ordering, and planning. An effect similar to the one described was achieved everywhere – albeit over a slightly longer period. Despite this, the vast majority of work around the world is still done traditionally, with batches of products moving from department to department, lining up at the machine. And this is fifty years after an order of magnitude better method was discovered. Why?

The main problem is that thinking in terms of flow contradicts common sense, which leads us to believe that work should be divided into departments and done in batches. When high-performance equipment is installed and departments are assigned their functions, factors of career and ease of accounting come into force (accountants are always happy when expensive equipment works to its fullest), which does not at all contribute to the transition to a continuous method of work.

Reengineering showed that the division of work into departments is not optimal. An attempt has been made to shift the focus from organizational categories (departments) to value-creating “processes” such as credit checking, claims settlement, or incoming invoice processing(10). The problem was that conceptually the reengineers weren't very far along. They were still dealing with disparate aggregated processes by type of order processing for the entire range of products, instead of seeing the whole value stream of each product. In their reasoning, they rarely went beyond the boundaries of the company that paid them fees. Although real improvements can only occur when the value stream is considered as a whole. Moreover, by using hired SWOT analysis teams, consultants unwittingly fueled hostility between employees and departments. The natural result was a decline in morale among those who remained alive after reengineering, as well as the degradation of the organization as a whole.

The alternative that lean manufacturing offers is to rethink the role of functions, departments and the entire firm so that everyone contributes to the creation of value, and that their work responds to the real needs of employees throughout the value chain (so that employees are personally interested in providing movement of value along the flow). To do this, simply creating a lean enterprise for each product is not enough. A rethinking of the role of the firm, functions and professions is required, as well as the development of a “lean” strategy. All this will be discussed in the third part of the book.

Product pulling

The first visible effect of the change in the organization of work - from departments and batches to product teams and flow - was manifested in a significant reduction in the time between concept development and product release, between sales and delivery, between receipt of raw materials and delivery of the finished product to the consumer. After implementing the flow method, design time is reduced from several years to a matter of months, order processing time is reduced from days to hours, and production itself now requires several hours instead of weeks or months. If your management efforts don't cut product development time in half, cut order processing time by three-quarters, or cut physical processing time by 90 percent, you've clearly made a mistake somewhere. Lean manufacturing allows you to freely change the production sequence of any product and thereby immediately respond to changes in demand.

What does lean manufacturing lead to? Moreover, money, as a result of a significant reduction in inventories and an acceleration in return on investment, simply begins to pour in. Is it really that serious? In fact, this is true. The ability to design and build what customers actually need, when they need it, means that all sales forecasts can be thrown in the trash. Now you can simply listen to the consumer and do what he needs. This means that you allow the consumer pull out product from your hands when he needs it, instead of feeding him all the junk. As we will show in Chapter 4, consumer demand stabilizes significantly when consumers know that they can get the product they want immediately, and also when the manufacturer stops holding periodic sales to get rid of unwanted goods.

Here is a very real example: the book you are holding in your hands is very lucky, since a good half of the publications printed annually in the USA do not find their readers and are recycled into waste paper. This happens because publishers, printers and distributors working in the same value stream have not learned to see the stream itself. Therefore, the consumer cannot pull out product. When a store's inventory runs low, it takes several weeks to reprint. And this despite the fact that books in the store, as a rule, do not linger. Publishers are left with either releasing books to the market at the peak of reader demand, or organizing massive sales. Since it is not possible to accurately predict demand, books have to be printed in thousands of copies, in reserve. Although it is possible that only a measly thousand copies will be sold from this stock. The remainder will be returned to the publishing house, which will recycle it into waste paper at the end of the season.

The solution to this problem will be gradual. It will be several years before printers can quickly print small quantities of books and distributors can quickly restock books on store shelves (using the method described in Chapter 4). In the end, the “correct” book publishing technologies will make it possible to print a book exactly when it is needed by the consumer, who will place an order in a store, from home or from the office. However, some consumers may not want to have a “physical” copy of the book at all. Instead, they will demand that the “publisher” send them an electronic version of the book on their computer, which they will print out the old-fashioned way only if necessary. This will only be possible when participants in the book's value stream understand the fourth principle - pulling.

Perfection

Once an organization learns to correctly determine value, see all value stream, continuously add value to the product at every stage flow and will allow the consumer pull out value from the organization, something interesting will happen. All participants in the process will understand that the process of improvement is never-ending. You can reduce labor, time, production space, production costs and errors as much as you want, while creating a product that gets closer and closer to what the consumer really needs. Perfection– the fifth principle of lean manufacturing – ceases to be a pipe dream.

Why not? The first four principles created everything necessary for this. An increase in flow speed always reveals muda, which was previously invisible. The higher the speed pulling, the more obstacles there are to the flow. Dedicated product teams work closely with consumers to eliminate these obstacles. Their task is to determine value even more accurately and learn how to increase the flow rate and simplify the process pulling.

Although liquidation muda sometimes it requires the introduction of new technologies, usually you can get by with quite simple methods. Above we gave an example of the Pratt&Whitney plant. It completely replaced an automatic turbine blade grinding system with a U-shaped cell that cost one-fourth the price. Pratt&Whitney engineers designed and installed it themselves in a very short time. The new system made it possible to cut production costs in half, reduce production time by 99%, and reduce changeover time from several hours to seconds. Now Pratt & Whitney could get to work immediately after receiving an order and do exactly what the consumer needed. Even if nothing more is done other than scrapping the remains of the automated system, Pratt & Whitney's lean transition will continue to bear fruit for another year.

The undeniable advantage of lean manufacturing is transparency. Everyone involved in the process—subcontractors, tier 1 suppliers, assembly plants, distributors, customers, employees—can see the entire process and can therefore more easily identify ways to add value. It is very important for the process of continuous improvement that employees immediately receive extremely valuable information about the results. This will be discussed in Chapter 3.

Readers familiar with the American policy of “open-card management”(11) will recall that financial transparency and financial rewards for employee performance are its key elements. There are many similarities between this approach and ours. Difficulties arise when it comes to linking financial transparency and performance-based rewards to performance improvement. If no one knows how to do a job more efficiently, people will just sit through their work hours. The answer lies in the organization of flow and the principles of pull, which will be discussed in the pages of this book. When employees have immediate information about product development, ordering, production, and customer satisfaction, most of the “carrot and stick” techniques that “open-card management” is built on will become unnecessary.

Success is in our hands

Dreaming of perfection is a pleasure. By dreaming, we expand the boundaries of what is possible. Lean thinking offers hope for long-term excellence, but most of us live and work in shorter-term terms. What can lean manufacturing give us right now?

Based on our observations of organizations around the world, we have developed a simple and effective rule. Transforming classic mass production into lean production allows you to double productivity throughout the system, reducing production time and inventory levels by 90%. The level of defects reaching the consumer is reduced by half, as well as the number of production defects and accidents at work. The time to bring a new product to market is cut in half. For a very small additional fee, a significantly larger number of product modifications become available to the consumer. In this case, capital costs are small, and sometimes (in the case of selling off unnecessary assets) they are completely absent.

This amazing effect occurs due to radical improvements ( kaikaku) value stream. Then the processes of continuous improvement come into play ( kaizen), which move the company towards perfection gradually. Such improvements can again double productivity within two or three years, and further halve inventory, error rates, and production cycle times. Combining kaikaku And kaizen, you can continue improving indefinitely.

It is very difficult to admit that this is possible. Especially provided that no special technological innovations are required. It is precisely in order to show that this is real, for several years in a row we have carefully documented all cases of transition to lean manufacturing at enterprises in leading industries in the world. In this book we will talk about transition methods and also present specific results.

Remedy against stagnation

Lean manufacturing is not just a remedy muda in the abstract sense of the word. It is a means of combating the long-term economic stagnation that has engulfed Europe, Japan and North America. Traditionally, people try to achieve economic growth through new technologies and intensive training. That is why stores are filled with books on reducing the cost of processing and transmitting data using the Internet. Logically, reducing the cost of information, coupled with training in modern management methods, should give a good increase in productivity.

However, not everything is so rosy. In recent years, there has been a revolution in the use of robots, new materials (just think of ceramic car engines and plastic airplanes), microprocessors, personal computers and biotechnology. True, at the same time, the volume of domestic product per capita (that is, the share of value per person on average) in all developed countries has not increased one bit.

The problem is not the new technologies themselves, since they cover a very small share of the economy. Very few companies can, like Microsoft, grow into business giants in a short time. Most businesses in the construction, housing, transportation, food, manufacturing and service industries change very slowly. Moreover, they may not change at all unless a way is found to create value and apply new technologies through teamwork. But these traditional activities are responsible for more than 95% of all production and consumption.

In other words, all economically active countries are a mixture of traditional activities carried out in traditional ways. New technology and capital can provide long-term growth. The introduction of lean manufacturing will ensure that this growth will be achieved over the next few years. (You'll also see that lean manufacturing can quench the thirst for some "new technology.")

The ongoing stagnation in developed countries has already led to the fact that, in order to divide a single “economic” pie among an increasing number of eaters, politicians have begun to look for “scapegoats.”

And it is the stagnant economy that is responsible for the business world's obsession with cost-cutting (implemented by re-engineering specialists), resulting in a growing ranks of unemployed people and a lack of incentive for those employed to work selflessly for the benefit of the company. Lean manufacturing is an affordable, immediate solution that can produce the desired results. And this book explains how to achieve this.

Get to work!

Since the idea of ​​lean manufacturing contradicts “common sense” and is not immediately perceived (although it seems obvious in the future), it would be correct to show how all five principles of lean manufacturing work in life. The first part of the book will show real cases of liquidation muda using lean manufacturing. We'll start with the concept values, which is known to be determined by the consumer.

Value

Home or quiet place?

Doyle Wilson of Austin, Texas, built homes for fifteen years before he started thinking seriously about quality. “In October 1991, I felt completely uneasy,” he recalls. – For the most part, the work stood still, and what was done constantly had to be redone. Warranty obligations were ruining, friction with customers was exhausting. I knew there had to be a better way. And that’s when I learned about the existence of the quality movement.”

Doyle read the book by Carl Sivel Customer for Life(12), dedicated to car sales, and decided to test its provisions in practice. To do this, in Dallas, at one of Sivel’s dealerships, he purchased a car. At the same time, the thought did not leave him that “if a car seller can make the buyer happy, then a house seller can do it even more so.” The experience of the purchase was so pleasant that he decided to talk to Sivel. He advised Doyle to read the works of Edwards Deming.

Because Doyle Wilson was a true Texan and never stopped halfway, by February 1992 his company Doyle Wilson Homebuilder was already in full swing with a Total Quality Management (TQM) program. Over the next three years, he personally trained all his employees in the principles of TQM, established the collection of data on all aspects of his business, abolished bonuses for sales volumes that were destroying the idea of ​​quality, eliminated the traditional reward for timely delivery of the project (in fact, the foremen simply “agreed” to sign the act delivery and acceptance until all deficiencies are eliminated), reduced the number of subcontractors by two-thirds, and obliged the remaining ones to attend his paid monthly quality seminars.

Consumer surveys indicated a continued increase in satisfaction. Despite the general sluggishness of the market, sales volumes also increased, which was due to consumers switching from competitors. After Doyle Wilson Homebuilder won the National Home Builder Quality Award (often called the Baldrige Quality in Construction Award) in 1995, Doyle set out to win the Baldrige Award itself by 1998. He would no longer settle for anything less.

“I knew this was quite an improvement over the competition, but here's what's interesting: 78% of all homes purchased annually in Central Texas are on the resale market. Of course, my share of the remaining 22% was constantly increasing, but what about that 78%? With the right approach, people who prefer old houses can become a real treasure,” thought Doyle.

So instead of interviewing people who were buying new homes, he decided to talk to those who were buying homes on the secondary market. Despite the fact that the answers turned out to be quite obvious, they needed to be perceived and “digested”, since in fact they meant that it was necessary to rethink the entire business. Many of those who bought old houses did not want to spoil their mood by arguing with the builders and waiting for construction to be completed. They were not happy that houses were always delivered with imperfections, that “ordering an individual project by phone” actually resulted in receiving a “standard set” with many completely unnecessary features.

Wilson realized that he himself was unwittingly causing customers to experience similar difficulties. Buyers of older homes have it much easier. They see where they are moving and know that they are only paying for what they really need. In addition, they can be occupied immediately. “No wonder I was losing 78% of potential buyers!” Doyle concluded.

To increase satisfaction from buying a home, it was necessary to rethink all stages of doing business. Wilson built a special demonstration center in which the consumer could choose any building and finishing materials (for example, there were forty different types of bricks, three thousand types of wallpaper, four styles of office design). Customers could correct the project themselves using the program AutoCad, choose options that are not included in the standard package (for example, thicker carpet, additional street lighting, powerful power cables). In addition, it was possible to calculate the exact price of the house and mortgage payments, issue a guarantee and title. For particularly impatient customers, all this could be done in one visit to the demonstration center.

To reduce the lead time (from signing the contract to moving into the finished home) from six months to thirty days, Doyle reorganized the contract preparation and execution process, and began developing a "pull" system for subcontractors, whereby they received the next order only after how the previous one was performed. Now he is busy developing standard work orders, standard lists of materials and sets of tools needed to complete each type of job. He hopes that in the near future he will be able to forget about the existence of a “punch list”, since no subsequent work can begin until the previous one is accepted completely and with impeccable quality (13).

Wilson created many basic house designs, based on which consumers themselves selected all the other components for each project (using a computer design system). Thus, the consumer paid only for what he really needed.

Bringing the transformation process to completion will not be easy. But the main thing is that Wilson took the first step. Instead of operating, like his competitors, in a traditional market, subject to its laws that had developed over many years, Wilson began to use the concept of value, which was determined by the consumer. And this is a completely different path, which we will talk about in Chapter 3.

Forget everything you previously knew about value.

Why is it so difficult to get value right from the start? Partly because most manufacturers are used to doing what they have always done. And also because many consumers don't know how to ask for something they haven't encountered before. If you take the wrong road, it is not surprising that you will end up in an unknown place. When manufacturers or consumers finally begin to think that the concept of value needs to be rethought, instead of jointly analyzing value and struggling with old ideas about what the consumer really needs, they often limit themselves to the hackneyed formulas of reducing costs, organizing immediate delivery and increasing the variety of products by making them to order.

Steve Maynard, vice president of technology and product development at Wiremold Company, East Hartford, Conn., faced exactly the same problems when he was forced to reorganize his product development system in 1992. For many years, Wiremold produced plastic tubing for power cables for offices and industrial plants, surge protectors for computers and other electronics, using a standard division of work between departments. The development process began with the marketing department, which compared Wiremold's products with those of competitors. When a free market niche was discovered (an area unoccupied by competitors or someone's wrong marketing move), project development engineers got to work. The manufactured sample was tested, and if it functioned in accordance with the technical specifications, the engineers who developed the production equipment were involved. After this, mass production began.

End of introductory fragment.

* * *

The given introductory fragment of the book Lean Manufacturing: How to Eliminate Waste and Make Your Company Prosper (Daniel Jones, 2003) provided by our book partner -

Oleg Levyakov

LIN (from the English Lean - slender, lean) production or logistics of "lean" production has caused a tremendous increase in labor productivity and production volumes and remains the main production system in many sectors of the world economy.

Lean Manufacturing is an American name Toyota Production System. The creator of lean manufacturing, Taiichi Ohno, began his first experiments in production optimization back in the 1950s. In those post-war times, Japan was in ruins and the country needed new cars. But the problem was that demand was not great enough to justify the purchase of a powerful production line, in the manner of Ford. Many different types of cars were needed (passenger cars, light and medium-duty trucks, etc.), but the demand for a specific type of car was small. The Japanese had to learn to work efficiently, creating many different models in conditions of low demand for each model. No one had solved this problem before, since efficiency was understood exclusively in terms of mass production.

Lean manufacturing involves the involvement of each employee in the business optimization process and maximum customer focus.

The starting point of lean manufacturing is customer value. From the point of view of the end consumer, a product (service) acquires actual value only at the time when direct processing and production of these elements occurs. The heart of lean manufacturing is the process of eliminating waste, which is called muda in Japanese. Muda is a Japanese word that means waste, that is, any activity that consumes resources but does not create value. For example, the consumer does not need the finished product or its parts to be in stock. However, in a traditional management system, warehouse costs, as well as all costs associated with rework, defects, and other indirect costs are passed on to the consumer.

In accordance with the concept of lean manufacturing, all activities of an enterprise can be classified as follows: operations and processes that add value to the consumer, and operations and processes that do not add value to the consumer. Therefore, anything that does not add value to the customer, from a lean manufacturing perspective, is classified as waste and must be eliminated.

The main goals of lean manufacturing are:

• reduction of costs, including labor;
• reduction of product creation time;
• reduction of production and warehouse space;
• guarantee of product delivery to the customer;
• maximum quality at a certain cost or minimum cost at a certain quality.

As mentioned above, the history of the LIN system began with the Toyota company. Sakishi Toyoda, one of the founders of Toyota, believed that there is no limit to production improvement and, regardless of the company’s state in the market and its competitiveness, constant movement forward and improvement of all production processes are necessary. The result of this philosophy was the kaizen (continuous improvement) strategy pursued at Toyota enterprises. Sakishi Toyoda supported large investments in research work to create new cars.

Kiishiro Toyoda, Sakishi's son, understood that he would have to do something unusual in order to successfully compete with American auto giants (such as Ford). To begin with, he introduced the concept of “just in time” (Togo and Wartman) at his enterprises, which meant that any car part had to be created no earlier than it was needed. Therefore, the Japanese, unlike the Americans, did not have huge warehouses with spare parts, while the Japanese saved more time and resources. The "kaizen" and "Togo and Wartman" methods became the basis of the Toyoda family's manufacturing philosophy.

The next in the dynasty, Eiji Toyoda, began his activities by developing a five-year plan to improve production methods. To do this, Taichi Ono was invited to Toyota as a consultant, who introduced “kanban” cards - “tracking inventory movements.” Taichi Ohno taught the workers a detailed understanding of the "kaizen" and "Togo and Wartman" methods, modernized the equipment and established the correct sequence of operations. If any problem arose with the assembly of products on the conveyor, the conveyor would immediately stop in order to quickly find and fix any problems. Toyota has been implementing its industrial quality philosophy for twenty years, including with its suppliers.

Soichiro Toyoda became president and then chairman of the board of directors of Toyota Motor Corporation in 1982. Under his leadership, Toyota became an international corporation. Soishiro began his work to improve quality in the company by studying the works of the American quality expert E. Deming. Quality management at Toyota enterprises has become clearer and has been implemented in all departments of the company.

Thus, over several generations of Toyota management, a unique quality system was developed, which formed the basis of the LIN system.

The most popular Lean manufacturing tools and methods are:

1. Value Stream Mapping.
2. Pull-line production.
3. Kanban.
4. Kaizen - continuous improvement.
5. The 5C system is a technology for creating an effective workplace.
6. SMED system - Fast equipment changeover.
7. TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) system - Total equipment care.
8. JIT system (Just-In-Time - just on time).
9. Visualization.
10. U-shaped cells.

Value Stream Mapping is a fairly simple and visual graphic diagram depicting the material and information flows necessary to provide a product or service to the end consumer. A value stream map makes it possible to immediately see the bottlenecks of the flow and, based on its analysis, identify all unproductive costs and processes, and develop an improvement plan. Value stream mapping includes the following steps:

1. Documenting the current state map.
2. Production flow analysis.
3. Creating a future state map.
4. Developing an improvement plan.

Pull production(eng. pull production) - a production organization scheme in which the volume of production at each production stage is determined exclusively by the needs of subsequent stages (ultimately - by the needs of the customer).

The ideal is “single piece flow”, i.e. The upstream supplier (or internal supplier) does not produce anything until the downstream consumer (or internal consumer) tells him to do so. Thus, each subsequent operation “pulls” products from the previous one.

This way of organizing work is also closely related to line balancing and flow synchronization.

Kanban system is a system that ensures the organization of a continuous material flow in the absence of inventories: inventories are supplied in small batches, directly to the required points of the production process, bypassing the warehouse, and finished products are immediately shipped to customers. The order of product production management is reverse: from the i-th stage to the (i - 1)-th.

The essence of the CANBAN system is that all production departments of the enterprise are supplied with material resources only in the quantity and on time that are necessary to fulfill the order. The order for finished goods is submitted to the last stage of the production process, where the required volume of work in progress is calculated, which should come from the penultimate stage. Similarly, from the penultimate stage there is a request for the previous stage of production for a certain number of semi-finished products. That is, the size of production at a given site is determined by the needs of the next production site.

Thus, between each two adjacent stages of the production process there is a double connection:

• from the i-th stage to the (i - 1)-th stage, the required amount of work in progress is requested (“pulled”);
• From the (i - 1) stage, material resources in the required quantity are sent to the i-th stage.

The means of transmitting information in the CANBAN system are special cards (“canban”, translated from Japanese as a card). Two types of cards are used:

• production order cards, which indicate the number of parts to be produced at a previous stage of production. Production order cards are sent from the i-th production stage to the (i - 1)-th stage and are the basis for the formation of a production program for the (i - 1)-th section;
• selection cards, which indicate the amount of material resources (components, parts, semi-finished products) that must be taken at the previous processing (assembly) site. Selection cards show the amount of material resources actually received by the i-th production site from the (i - 1)-th.

In this way, cards can circulate not only within an enterprise using the CANBAN system, but also between it and its branches, as well as between cooperating corporations.

Enterprises using a CANBAN system receive production resources daily or even several times during the day, so the enterprise's inventory can be completely updated 100-300 times a year or even more often, while in an enterprise using an MRP or MAP system - only 10-20 times in year. For example, at Toyota Motors Corporation, resources were supplied to one of the production sites three times a day in 1976, and in 1983 - every few minutes.

The desire to reduce inventories also becomes a method for identifying and solving production problems. The accumulation of inventories and inflated production volumes make it possible to hide frequent equipment breakdowns and shutdowns, as well as manufacturing defects. Since, in conditions of minimizing inventories, production can be stopped due to defects at a previous stage of the technological process, the main requirement of the CANBAN system, in addition to the “zero inventories” requirement, becomes the “zero defects” requirement. The CANBAN system is almost impossible to implement without the simultaneous implementation of a comprehensive quality management system.

Important elements of the CANBAN system are:

• an information system that includes not only cards, but also production, transport and supply schedules, technological maps;
• system for regulating the need and professional rotation of personnel;
• system of total (TQM) and selective ("Jidoka") product quality control;
• production leveling system.

Main advantages of the CANBAN system:

• short production cycle, high asset turnover, including inventories;
• there are no or extremely low storage costs for production and inventory;
• high quality products at all stages of the production process.

An analysis of global experience in using the CANBAN system has shown that this system makes it possible to reduce production inventories by 50%, inventory by 8%, with a significant acceleration of working capital turnover and an increase in the quality of finished products.

The main disadvantages of the just-in-time system are:

• the difficulty of ensuring high consistency between product production stages;
• significant risk of disruption to production and sales of products.

Kaizen- this is a derivative of two hieroglyphs - "change" and "good" - usually translated as "change for the better" or "continuous improvement."

In an applied sense, Kaizen is a philosophy and management mechanisms that encourage employees to propose improvements and implement them promptly.

There are five main components of Kaizen:

1. Interaction;
2. Personal discipline;
3. Improved morale;
4. Quality Circles;
5. Suggestions for improvement;

5C system - technology for creating an effective workplace

Under this designation a system of establishing order, cleanliness and strengthening discipline is known. The 5C system includes five interrelated principles for organizing the workplace. The Japanese name for each of these principles begins with the letter "S". Translated into Russian - sorting, rational arrangement, cleaning, standardization, improvement.

1. SORTING: separate necessary items - tools, parts, materials, documents - from unnecessary ones in order to remove the latter.
2. RATIONAL ARRANGEMENT: rationally arrange what is left, place each item in its place.
3. CLEANING: Maintain cleanliness and order.
4. STANDARDIZE: Maintain accuracy by performing the first three S's regularly.
5. IMPROVEMENT: making established procedures a habit and improving them.

Quick changeover (SMED - Single Minute Exchange of Die) literally translated as “Changing a stamp in 1 minute.” The concept was developed by Japanese author Shigeo Shingo and revolutionized approaches to changeover and retooling. As a result of the implementation of the SMED system, changing any tool and readjusting can be done in just a few minutes or even seconds, “with one touch” (“OTED” concept - “One Touch Exchange of Dies”).

As a result of numerous statistical studies, it was found that the time for carrying out various operations during the changeover process is distributed as follows:

• preparation of materials, dies, fixtures, etc. - thirty%;
• securing and removing dies and tools - 5%;
• centering and placement of the tool - 15%;
• trial processing and adjustment - 50%.

As a result, the following principles were formulated to reduce changeover time by tens and even hundreds of times:

• separation of internal and external adjustment operations,
• transformation of internal actions into external ones,
• use of functional clamps or complete removal of fasteners,
• use of additional devices.

TPM (Total Productive Maintenance) system - Total equipment care mainly serves to improve the quality of equipment, focused on maximum efficient use thanks to a comprehensive preventive maintenance system. The emphasis of this system is on prevention and early detection of equipment defects that can lead to more serious problems.

TRM involves operators and repairmen, who together ensure increased equipment reliability. The basis of TPM is the establishment of a schedule for preventive maintenance, lubrication, cleaning and general inspection. This ensures an increase in the Total Equipment Efficiency indicator.

JIT (Just-In-Time) system - materials management system in production, in which components from a previous operation (or from an external supplier) are delivered exactly when they are needed, but not before. This system leads to a sharp reduction in the volume of work in progress, materials and finished goods in warehouses.

A just-in-time system involves a specific approach to selecting and evaluating suppliers, based on working with a narrow range of suppliers selected for their ability to guarantee just-in-time delivery of high-quality components. At the same time, the number of suppliers is reduced by two or more times, and long-term economic relations are established with the remaining suppliers.

Visualization is any means of communicating how work should be done. This is such an arrangement of tools, parts, containers and other indicators of the state of production, in which everyone can understand at first glance the state of the system - the norm or deviation.

The most commonly used imaging methods are:

1. Outlining.
2. Color coding.
3. Road sign method.
4. Paint marking.
5. “It was” - “it became”.
6. Graphic work instructions.

U-shaped cells- Arrangement of equipment in the shape of the Latin letter “U”. In a U-shaped cell, the machines are arranged in a horseshoe shape according to the sequence of operations. With this equipment arrangement, the final processing stage occurs in close proximity to the initial stage, so the operator does not have to walk far to begin the next production cycle.

In a period of intense competition and an escalating crisis, enterprises around the world have no other way than, using the world's best management technologies, to create products and services that maximally satisfy customers in terms of quality and price.

Losses in any production process are an inevitable problem for many enterprises, both those producing products and providing services. Waste is a condition that, to put it mildly, does not add value to a product or service. In order to detect losses, you first need to recognize them. There are eight types of losses, due to which up to 85% of an enterprise’s resources are lost:

1. Loss of creativity. When an employee is treated like a cog in a machine that can be thrown out or replaced at any time, when relationships are reduced to the “work with your hands and strictly follow the boss’s instructions” scheme, employees’ interest in work steadily declines. Experts believe that this order of things is outdated, it is pulling the company back, which will immediately affect the company’s profits. In Japan, for example, “quality circles” appear in various companies, where anyone has the right to express their proposals for improving the quality of processes. Analysts believe that in the 21st century, success will be for those companies that can create among their staff a feeling of involvement in improving production.
2. Excessive production, which is expressed in the fact that more goods are produced than required, or earlier than the customer requires. As a result, those resources that could be spent on improving quality are spent on increasing quantity.
3. Delays. When workers stand idle waiting for materials, tools, equipment, information, it is always a consequence of poor planning or insufficient relationships with suppliers, or unforeseen fluctuations in demand.
4. Unnecessary transportation when materials or products are moved more frequently than necessary for a continuous process. It is important to deliver everything you need in a timely manner and to the right place, and for this, the enterprise must implement good logistics schemes.
5. Excessive inventory, or storing in warehouses more products than are sold and more materials than are needed for the process.
6. Overprocessing. Products must come out of production of such high quality that, if possible, they exclude rework and modification, and quality control must be fast and effective.
7. Defects that must be avoided at all costs, because additional funds are spent on resolving customer complaints: if a defective product needs to be corrected, extra time, effort and money are spent.
8. Poor movement, or poor delivery of tools and materials within the enterprise, unnecessary movement of employees around the premises.

According to a study by the Institute for Integrated Strategic Studies (ICSI) on the spread of lean manufacturing in Russia in March-April 2006, out of 735 surveyed Russian industrial enterprises, 32% used Japanese experience. A repeat survey was conducted in March-April 2008. Application of Lean Manufacturing at Russian industrial enterprises in 2006-2008.” at the III Russian Lean Forum “Lean Russia”. Enterprises that were the first to apply lean production methods: Gorky Automobile Plant (GAZ Group), RUSAL, EvrazHolding, Eurochem, VSMPO-AVISMA, KUMZ OJSC, Chelyabinsk Forging and Press Plant (ChKPZ OJSC), Sollers OJSC "("UAZ", "ZMZ"), KAMAZ, NefAZ, Sberbank of Russia OJSC, etc.

Lean manufacturing technology kaizen (Kaizen, Japanese for continuous improvement) - a comprehensive concept that covers philosophy, theory and management tools, allowing you to achieve competitive advantage at the present stage.

In management system practice, this concept has a synonym - continuous improvement process (German - KVP, Kontinuierlicher Verbesserungs Prozess, English - CIP, Continuous Improvement Process). In an economic sense, the concept generally refers to actions to continuously improve all functions of an enterprise, from production to management. Kaizen is a concept derived from the Japanese words kai = change, and zen = good or for the better. Kaizen was first introduced in a few Japanese factories during the economic recovery after World War II and has since spread to factories around the world. The most famous practical application of this concept was developed for the Japanese corporation Toyota Motor Corporation. It is the basis of the method Total Quality Management(English - TQM, Total Quality Management) and includes measures to prevent waste (), innovation and work with new standards.

The ideas of the kaizen system () are set out by Masaaki Imaia in the book of the same name, which was published in England in 1986. The main ones:

“Kaizen is based on the fact that no enterprise is without problems. Kaizen helps solve these problems by developing a work culture where each employee is not fined for a problem, but guarantees that it will not happen.”

• “Kaizen strategy is based on the recognition that management, whose goal is to make a profit, must set as its goal the satisfaction of the customer and his requirements.”
• “Kaizen is a customer-focused improvement strategy.”
• “Kaizen is based on the premise that all enterprise activities should ultimately lead to increased customer satisfaction. At the same time, the philosophy of the internal and external clients differs.”

Convincing evidence of the effectiveness of the lean concept is a comparison of the level of innovation in enterprises in Japan and in Western countries. For comparison: in 1989, 83% of all innovation proposals were implemented in Japan, while in Germany - 40%, and in the USA - only 30%. In Germany, there are 0.15 innovation proposals per employee per year, while in Japan this figure is over 30.

With NPU, at the center there is a person with abilities and knowledge, which are the most important capital of the company. To this we can add a positive perception of problems by the organization, since they are an incentive for improvement. What is at the forefront is not the question of who is causing the problems, but the common effort to fundamentally solve them. It is not punishment for the mistakes of the past, but the possibility of improvement for the benefit of a common future that should guide the company's thinking. The desire to recognize real problems and eliminate them for a long time is decisive!

Thus, the team of employees is seen as a source of motivation, identification, mental energy, synergy and increasing creativity. NPU means continuous, systematic and consistent work on:

• setting and pursuing goals,
• eliminating interference,
• looking for opportunities for improvement,
• preventing waste with the help of all employees at all levels, in all departments, workshops and offices.

Elements of Kaizen

For normal and efficient work in production, it is necessary to create appropriate conditions. Therefore, Kaizen is based on 5 important points.

1. Teamwork. All employees must work as a team to achieve a common goal. They are obligated to do whatever is necessary for the benefit of their colleagues and their employer company. Provides for constant information exchange, mutual training, fulfillment of duties on time, etc.
2. Personal discipline. In any enterprise, discipline is important. It ensures success. The basis of kaizen is self-discipline, which includes managing your working time, the level of quality of work, fulfilling requirements, complying with regulations, etc.
3. Moral condition. It is essential that employees maintain their high morale. Therefore, management is obliged to implement a system of effective motivation, create good working conditions, and provide for all aspects related to providing its employees with everything they need.
4. Quality mugs. The enterprise needs to organize quality circles, which include employees of different levels. Such circles allow for the exchange of ideas, skills, and everything that is required for teamwork. The functioning of quality circles allows employees to evaluate their achievements when exchanging information and strive for better results in their work.
5. Suggestions for improvement. Management needs to ensure that every employee can make suggestions, regardless of position. Even absurd proposals must be accepted and considered.

Kaizen principles

Basic:

1.Organization of the workplace (gemba), for which 5S methods are used:

• Seiri – definition of what is not needed in work;
• Seiso – ensuring the cleanliness of the workplace and equipment used;
• Seiton - putting in order everything that is used in work;
• Seiketsu – actions to standardize the first 3 steps;
• Shitsuke – support for established workplace management.

2. Elimination of unjustified losses related to:

• Unnecessary movement;
• Unnecessary waiting;
• Incorrect organization of technical processes;
• Transportation;
• Defects, defects;
• Excess inventory;
• Overproduction.

3. Standardization, which allows you to create the basis for stability in work. The implementation of standards must occur at all levels. Their improvement is carried out according to the PDCA cycle.

Important! To effectively implement a kaizen system, it is necessary to use other lean manufacturing tools, including the kanban technique.

Continuous improvement process

Continuous improvement process- This is not only the study of new methods and, but also a different form of cooperation. More local self-organization with the help of capable employees, more personal responsibility for all participants, more development of innovative potential in the enterprise. Moreover, management requirements acquire additional importance. Along with professional and methodological competence, success depends on managers having social competence. The process of changing attitudes occurs from the top down, and the best guarantee of success through NPM is exemplary leadership management. Necessary changes in the approach to work are carried out by management, setting an example for employees who learn about these changes and adopt them. The economic and social goals of the kaizen (lean manufacturing) process are the goals.

In enterprises using kaizen technology, the continuous process of improvement is a vital part of the functioning of production management. It covers:

• organization (organizational structure, distribution of responsibilities, coordination, control mechanism);
• management (delimiting goals, choosing topics, forming a team);
• qualifying activities (behavioral training, methodological training);
• systematics (regularity, documentation, coverage of work teams, tools);
• incentive system (encouragement of innovation, special systems of moral and material incentives).

Lean (lean) (eng. lean production, lean manufacturing from lean - “skinny, slender”) is a system of simple solutions that can help improve efficiency and reduce costs.​

Today, an increasing number of enterprises are embarking on a lean development path, which allows, with the help of organizational measures, to increase labor productivity from 20 to 400% within a year. By using just one of the lean manufacturing tools - changing the flow of products, you can increase labor productivity by 30% in two years. This is what the General Director of the Kaluga Automotive Electrical Equipment Plant did. Now the plant is setting more ambitious plans to increase productivity - by another 50%.

Lean manufacturing technologies really produce results; enterprises need them. This will be discussed further.

8 principles of lean manufacturing that increase enterprise efficiency

The work of our company uses the principles of lean management, which is based on the desire to produce only in-demand goods in the required quantities without delays, without accumulating stocks in warehouses. When picking orders, we try to avoid activities that do not add value to the product. These include, for example, storing unnecessary inventory, unnecessary processing, and lengthy product movements within the warehouse. Here are a few ideas that we managed to implement. The described actions made it possible to reduce personnel rotation, improve the ergonomics of the work process, and increase its safety. Productivity across all order processing areas increased by 20% in six to seven months.

1. Weight control. One of the ways to eliminate losses in a logistics center is weight control of finished orders. It allows you to find errors before the order reaches the customer, which reduces the number of complaints. So, if the actual weight of the box with the order does not coincide with the calculated one, then it is not sealed, but sent for inspection and, if necessary, for additional assembly.

2. Conveyor system for used containers. A conveyor runs through all assembly areas and automatically delivers used corrugated cardboard to the pressing area, where a horizontal press produces a bale of pressed cardboard with little or no operator intervention. This minimizes the work associated with the turnover of used containers and reduces the amount of paper dust. As a result, the level of environmental pollution is reduced and equipment fails less often. We sell pressed cardboard to companies for recycling.

3. Selection by light. Along a conveyor with an area of ​​9.2 thousand square meters. boxes move, and employees at assembly stations insert products into them using the pick by light system. With its implementation, the productivity of order collection in our center was 50% higher than the productivity in other Oriflame order processing centers in Russia. In addition, the assembly line is built according to the ABC principle, which minimizes the number of assembly stations and optimizes unit costs. Here's how the goods are distributed:

• zone A is the fastest assembly zone; about 20% of goods are placed here, which are included in more than 80% of orders;
• zone B – about 30% of the goods come here (or every tenth box);
• zone C – over 1.5 thousand items with the least popularity fall here (or every 50th order).

Pick by light technology(English, selection by light) is used to collect orders at the workstation. A light signal lights up on the display located under the selection cell. The storekeeper selects products from this bin and places them in an order box that moves along the conveyor line. Then he presses a button on the display, confirming the completion of this operation.

4. Visualization. Most visualization elements (markings, various signals) are built in such a way that even a new employee can easily understand their meaning. Thus, floor markings help maintain order near the working areas of the conveyor; it shows where certain materials belong and where they are prohibited from being placed. With the help of auxiliary signs (photos, stencils), you can indicate exactly where equipment should be located or what type of material should be in a particular place. This reduces the time spent searching for equipment and materials and simplifies the training of beginners. With the help of portable signs you can control the flow of products in a limited space, which can be very useful in small warehouses.

5. Orthopedic carpet. Pickers who put single-item items into boxes are constantly on the move, and their productivity drops by the end of their shift. We equipped such workplaces with a special orthopedic carpet. Due to its soft but elastic structure, it reduces the load on a person's legs and back when moving around the station, similar to running shoes. And the anti-slip surface prevents the risk of injury and helps maintain assembly speed.

6. The principle of “everything is at hand”. The more popular the product, the closer to the order picker it is located. We place products with high turnover at arm's length; products that are ordered less frequently are located further away. To reduce the time for selecting from the upper cells, metal steps are installed at the workplaces, which allow employees to easily reach even the top shelf.

7. Labor productivity monitor. It shows in real time the order picking speed of the entire line and individual stations. This way we can evaluate the work of each assembler, while employees begin to compete with each other. The monitor successfully complements the monetary motivation and makes the KPI system more transparent. In addition, such a system always allows you to identify errors at each station.

8. Points for idea. The most important thing is to involve workers in the improvement process. It is from them that ideas for eliminating losses should come. We try to achieve the goal by introducing the philosophy of lean production into the minds of employees, training managers and specialists in the algorithm of step-by-step changes according to the PDCA principle (English, Plan-Do-Check-Act - planning - action - check - adjustment).

We are currently finalizing the employee motivation system depending on their individual contribution to the overall process. Part of the new system is operating in the logistics center in Budapest. Its meaning is that for each idea the employee receives points, which he can exchange for prizes, and any ideas are evaluated, even those that are not suitable for implementation.

7 “lean” ideas that will work in 100% of companies

The editors of the General Director magazine, together with the Rostselmash enterprise, held a workshop on “Production System: Operational Efficiency in Action.” First we listened to the speakers, and in the afternoon we went on a tour of the workshops. In the article you will find lean manufacturing ideas, which can be implemented in any company.

Possible causes of losses at the enterprise

1. Unnecessary employee movements.

• irrational organization of workplaces - due to inconvenient placement of machines, equipment, etc.;
• workers are forced to make unnecessary movements to find the appropriate equipment, tools, etc.

How to avoid losses? The timing of one of the workplaces is carried out throughout the entire shift. It is necessary to calculate the employee’s time spent walking to the location of tools, components, accessories, and searching for them - this time is multiplied by the total number of workers in a shift and by the number of shifts during the year. Thanks to this, it is possible to calculate the losses of an enterprise during the year due to unnecessary movements of its employees.

An example of loss elimination. In one of the sections of the automobile enterprise, all the tools were in a common cabinet. Workers took one tool at the beginning of the shift, then they had to exchange it for another. Operators in total had to spend about 10-15% of their time on unnecessary trips to the closet and back to the workplace. Therefore, it was decided to allocate each employee his own tool cabinet. Thanks to this, we were able to reduce all movement, providing a more convenient and efficient workplace - with a 15% increase in the productivity of our employees.

2. Unreasonable transportation of materials. This category includes movements of materials that do not add value to the product. Possible causes of losses at the enterprise:

• a significant distance between the workshops, among which the products are transported;
• ineffective layout of their premises.

Calculation of losses. For example, you need to present a workpiece that has arrived at the warehouse. Then we think through an algorithm by which this workpiece goes through all the technological stages of production. You need to calculate how many meters the workpiece needs to be moved, how many times it will be lifted and placed, how much resources are needed for this, how much value is lost or added at the output (sometimes such movements lead to a decrease in the quality of the workpiece). We multiply the calculated losses by the number of workpieces that go through the production process throughout the year.

How to get rid of losses? A large body part at an automobile plant was moved to the welding area twice. The body was welded, then it was returned to its original place to treat the surface - and again it had to be sent for welding (to weld the assembly unit) and again to its original place. The result was a significant waste of time moving the part and waiting for the forklift. To reduce time losses, the welding station was located next to the electric trolley and machining area. Achieved time savings of 409 minutes. monthly. The time saved was enough to produce 2 more cases.

3. Unnecessary processing. Such losses arise in a situation where certain properties of the product are not beneficial to the customer. Including:

1. Features of the supplied products that customers do not need.
2. Unreasonably complex design of manufactured products.
3. Expensive product packaging.

Calculation of losses. You should visit the buyer (customer) to clarify how he uses your company’s products. If you specialize in the production of parts, you need to familiarize yourself with the installation process and related operations with your consumer. It is necessary to compile a list of structural elements and material properties of your products that are not important to your consumer. You also need to clarify with the customer what properties of the goods he considers unnecessary or secondary. You need to evaluate the amount of your own expenses that were previously required for such unnecessary properties.

Example from practice. At one of the bus production plants, all surfaces were painted to the highest class of accuracy. We conducted a survey of our consumers and found that they do not require such requirements for painting accuracy. Therefore, changes were made to their technical process - the accuracy class for invisible surfaces was lowered. We managed to reduce costs by hundreds of thousands of rubles monthly.

4. Waiting time. The cause of these losses is the downtime of equipment, machines, employees while waiting for the next or previous operation, the receipt of information or materials. This situation may be caused by the following factors:

1. Equipment failure.
2. Problems with the supply of semi-finished products and raw materials.
3. Waiting for orders from managers.
4. Lack of necessary documentation.
5. Problems with the software.

Calculation of losses. It is necessary to keep track of the actions or inactions of your employees, as well as the work (or downtime) of equipment during the shift. It is necessary to determine how long the workers have been idle, how long the equipment has been idle. The downtime of employees and equipment is multiplied by the number of employees (units of equipment) and the number of shifts per year - the result is total losses.

Example from practice. In one of our automotive production workshops there was a long period of equipment downtime due to frequent breakdowns. To reduce downtime, a repair and maintenance point was established in the workshop itself. When our machine failed, the worker only had to contact the repairmen so that they could immediately fix the existing problem. At the same time, the foreman forwarded the application to the chief mechanic for consideration. This approach allowed us to reduce employee and equipment downtime by 26 man-hours every month.

5. Hidden losses from overproduction. It is considered the most dangerous type of loss, since it provokes other types of losses. However, in the practice of many companies it is considered normal to produce more products than are required by the customer. Losses from overproduction can be caused by the following reasons:

1. Working with large batches of products.
2. Planning to fully utilize your workforce and equipment.
3. Production of unclaimed products.
4. Product output volumes exceed consumer demand.
5. Duplication of work.

Calculation of your losses. It is necessary to calculate the amount of unclaimed products stored in the enterprise’s warehouses during a month, quarter or year. The cost of these goods will be equal to the frozen capital. You also need to calculate the necessary costs for maintaining your warehouses and areas. How much of the product will spoil during storage? The summation of these indicators will allow you to determine your losses as a result of overproduction.

Example from practice. The automobile enterprise for the production of spare parts and auto components was working at the limit of its capabilities with a regular increase in volumes. However, some products always remained in warehouses. Based on the results of studying consumer demand and profits from each type of product, it was possible to understand that it is better to eliminate certain positions in your production, and use the freed up capacity to produce in-demand parts. The company was able to completely eliminate losses from overproduction in its practice, achieving an increase in profits by tens of millions of rubles.

6. Excess inventory. Surpluses appear in a situation where necessary materials and raw materials are purchased for future use. As a result, the company has to face certain losses:

• wages for warehouse workers;
• costs for renting warehouse space;
• unfinished production;
• long-term storage negatively affects the properties of materials.

Calculation of losses. It is necessary to determine the amount of inventory stored in the warehouse that is not claimed earlier than a week later - what costs are required for storage. You also need to consider the amount of materials in the warehouse that will not be needed for production - and how many of them are spoiled materials. Now you need to understand what funds are frozen and how much the spoiled materials cost.

Example from practice. The work in progress at the bus plant was 16 days. The quantity of certain components during assembly was excessive, but other items were regularly insufficient. Therefore, we organized the supply of the necessary parts for assembly every day in the required quantity.

7. Defects and their elimination. These losses are caused by the reworking of their products, eliminating defects that arose during work.

Calculation of losses. You should count the number of defective products in your catalog during the month and year. What costs will be required to dispose of this product? What resources are invested in reworking defective products? It must be taken into account that these costs are not borne by the customer, since his money is used to purchase only suitable products.

Example. The company had too high a percentage of defective goods - semi-finished cake products did not meet aesthetic standards. Appropriate changes were made in production using quality control methods at the manufacturing stage. If there were problems, an alert was triggered and the entire process was stopped so that the problem could be fixed immediately. This approach has reduced the incidence of defective products by approximately 80%.

Implementation of lean manufacturing at the enterprise

Since March 2008, our company has been implementing current lean manufacturing methods. In the Ural region last year, the demand for the purchase of profiteroles increased significantly. For a growing market, significant volumes were needed. But at that time we had only one production line at our disposal, so we thought about increasing productivity at the current capacity. This is exactly what lean manufacturing methods were needed for.

Product creation scheme. At the 1st stage, we used the VSM technique - we draw a diagram that depicts each stage of the flow of information and materials. You must first highlight what needs to be obtained from the results of this process and determine the first step to achieve the goal. Then you need to build a chain of necessary actions to move from the first stage to the next. We indicate on your map the duration of each stage and the required time to transfer materials and information from one stage to the next. The diagram must fit on one sheet of paper - to assess the interaction of all elements. After analyzing the diagram, we draw an improved map, which shows the already improved process with the adjustments made.

Elimination of losses. By analyzing the map, you can understand the bottlenecks in the production of profiteroles. Problems included inefficient use of personnel, holding back excess inventory, and suboptimal placement of equipment. To get rid of losses, the 5C system was used to optimize the location of equipment - it involves five basic rules. Namely, maintain order, sort, standardize, improve and keep clean.

To begin with – putting things in order. We marked equipment and materials with a red marker that had not been used for a month. It turned out that only 4 of the 15 carts were needed, and the unnecessary ones were sent to the warehouse.

The next stage is standardizing the location of your equipment. We clearly defined the boundaries of each object in production using markings on the floor. We marked the locations of dangerous units in red; yellow was used for other equipment. We hung all the tools on a special stand, for each of which the place was also indicated with markings.

The next task is to standardize the work of employees thanks to the visualization method. On the walls of the room there were stands with images of the algorithm of work operations and methods of execution. Thanks to this scheme, the employee could easily navigate the work process. Photos of standard and defective products are also posted on the stands. If a defect is detected, production is stopped until the causes are eliminated, sending semi-finished products and non-standard products for processing.

Next is process modeling, taking into account the reduction of losses during transportation, movement and waiting. In particular, eclairs and profiteroles in the rotary oven were previously baked in successive batches (first 10 carts of eclairs, then ten carts of profiteroles). When the profiteroles ran out, a simple injection machine and workers appeared. We decided to reduce the batches of profiteroles to three trolleys and eclairs to 7. Trolleys for eclairs were marked in blue and for profiteroles in yellow. We have created a signaling system - when a yellow cart arrives, you need to start baking an additional cart of profiteroles. The same principle was used for eclairs.

It was also decided to discard unused equipment and new equipment was purchased, including an injection machine and an additional belt conveyor.

Thanks to lean manufacturing, it was possible to reduce the number of workers on the production line to 11 employees instead of 15 - achieving an increase in output to 9,000 sets instead of the previous 6,000 per shift. The increase in output per employee amounted to 818 sets instead of 400. Three employees were transferred to more qualified work. In total, we managed to achieve a productivity increase of 35-37%. A platform was also organized to train its employees in new methods of organizing production.

By implementing a lean manufacturing system, we got rid of inventory

Tatiana Bertova, head of the regional distribution center of the TechnoNikol company, Ryazan
Elena Yasinetskaya, HR director at TechnoNikol, Moscow

About 8 years ago, the company's managers realized that the management methods used did not provide the required effect. Then we decided to use lean manufacturing. Various improvements were made, many of which did not require significant expenditure, but at the same time achieved significant economic benefits. I would like to focus your attention on this.

1. To reduce the time of shipment of finished products, we installed signs for overpass numbers, as well as driving directions on the territory of our enterprise. It became easier for drivers to navigate the territory and find loading points faster, with less time spent at the plant - significant time savings were achieved.
2. Redevelopment of warehouse areas and production areas - to save more than 30% of used space.

In total, we managed to achieve an increase in production by 55% with a doubling of turnover - even after reducing the staff by 2 units. Output per employee increased by more than 200%.

Successful experience made us think about using these techniques for other departments.

What to do to make the implementation of lean processes effective

The main reason for optimization is the shortage of production space. A pilot project in this direction is to improve the production process for the production of heat exchangers for air conditioning systems. The lean manufacturing implementation group included representatives of production, supply services, technology bureau, chief engineer service and quality service.

Help from experts is extremely useful at the initial stage. Although they immediately emphasized that any proposals for improving production processes should come from the working group, experts should only provide assistance in project management. The company's managers also participated in the work on the project, assessing the results of the work and approving the goals of the project itself. Based on our experience, we will consider the main factors that influence the success of the integration of lean manufacturing methods:

Customer focus. It is necessary to consider each complaint from the client, with the organization of an internal investigation. The measures taken should be aimed at preventing such shortcomings in the future by improving the process. Another significant aspect should also be taken into account - when visiting the enterprise, each consumer should receive confidence in reliable cooperation, with timely and high-quality execution of their orders.

Staff involvement. The implementation of a lean production system is impossible without the involvement of employees. But when inviting employees to participate, you need to respect their initiatives to improve production processes while ensuring comfortable working conditions. The enterprise regularly conducts surveys to obtain data on working conditions, availability of necessary documentation, organization of workplaces, etc. Then the necessary measures are taken to improve all processes with the obligatory involvement of employees. If some employee initiatives are impractical or impracticable, then at team meetings we correctly explain the reasons for the refusal.

Visibility. A visual management system is becoming a prerequisite for lean manufacturing. Thanks to it, it is possible to control the progress of production at any time. Facility diagrams have recently been placed on the walls of the premises - so everyone can understand where they are now, with a quick search for the required area. All areas are equipped with stands showing the extent to which the release of goods complies with our plans and the reasons for delays. It is necessary to understand the initial, and not just the immediate causes of the problems that have arisen. For example, a defect in a welded joint caused a schedule violation - but the real reason may be poor quality of parts or insufficient experience of the welder.

Load leveling. Not only planning for uniform production load and inventory levels is considered, but also smoothing out fluctuations in consumer demand. It is necessary to establish communication with customers so that they understand that uneven production load leads to negative consequences for them.

Measuring improvement. Employees and shareholders must understand that the changes made have a positive effect on the production and financial performance of the enterprise. It is necessary that the employee reward system depend on the activities of the entire team, but at the same time, individual achievements should also be taken into account. For example, thanks to a pilot project to combine product groups and reduce inventories in work in progress, the following effect was achieved:

• reduction of production cycles by 2.5-7 times;
• working time was used more efficiently up to 85% instead of the previous 50%. Namely, 85% of working time is spent on production;
• the volume of items in work in progress has been halved;
• reduction of the total distance of movement of the product during the production process by 40%;
• reduction in setup time by 50%.

However, the main achievement of lean manufacturing at our enterprise is that production capacity has increased by 25% without capital expenditures or expansion of space.

Lean Manufacturing Saved Toyota

Any change is a path, a journey. Only 10% of people know why they went on the road. They agree to do everything to overcome this path. Most people do not understand why changes are needed. They are just observers. Another 10% struggle with the need to change. They slow down progress. If you are faced with the need for change, determine which of your assistants are rowers, which are observers, and which are opponents of change. And then help the rowers and ignore the whiners, even if they try to interfere. And, if you have chosen the right path, observers will also begin to help you over time.

The moral of this Japanese parable was followed by the head of an American engineering company. The plant found itself in a crisis (many Russian enterprises are now in a similar situation); a number of problems arose before it:

• lack of time, emergency production mode, which does not allow the introduction of new management decisions;
• inadequacy of processes: most operations did not fit into the cycle, management processes were not carried out properly;
• unstable operation of equipment;
• lack of clear standards (in relation to personnel, processes, equipment, materials, workplaces);
• lack of visual management, untimely response to problems;
• lack of involvement of workers in the decision-making process;
• confusing accounting system.

All this led to the fact that the plant produced twenty cars less than planned every day, equipment constantly broke down, and there were quality problems in all workshops. The General Director was faced with a serious choice: leave and allow the owners to close the plant or try to restore it. The production management of the Toyota company was taken as a model. The following goals were set:

• improve safety, quality, delivery indicators by 20% and reduce costs by 20%;
• reduce costs caused by violation of ergonomic principles by 25%.

The introduction of lean manufacturing elements was not easy, but the General Director managed to change the strategy and involve not only top and middle managers, but also workers and team foremen in the process of change. Here are the main decisions that helped save the plant:

• creating an atmosphere of continuous improvement, or the kaizen approach (the translator mentioned the Greek sirtaki dance in the title of the book, which very well conveys the essence of this approach - involvement in the process and interest of all participants);
• allocation of working groups to solve problems;
• identifying bottlenecks through daily product analysis and taking into account the current state of production;
• implementation of visual management;
• organization of continuous training and rotation of employees;
• standardization of production processes;
• prevention of defects;
• putting things in order in the workplace and maintaining equipment;
• introduction of the so-called pull production system (production only when an order is received).

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Kaizen

Advantages of the Kaizen system

There are two levels of kaizen

1. System or flow kaizen that focuses on the value stream as a whole. This is the responsibility of managers.
2. Process kaizen focused on individual processes. This is the area of ​​responsibility of the work teams.

The proposal submission system is an integral part of one or another existing management mechanism, which is aimed at involving employees in Kaizen. The number of proposals submitted by workers is considered as an important criterion in assessing the performance of the leader of a group of workers and the manager to whom he reports.

According to Masaaki Imai, management, in order to implement a kaizen strategy, must

use the following basic elements of the concept:

1. maintenance and improvement as key functions of management;

2. concentration on the process, not the result;

3. the importance of following the PDCA/SDCA cycles;

4. main focus on quality;

5. all decisions are based only on facts;

6. customer orientation.