Lean Production
Lean production – often also referred to as lean manufacturing – aims to eliminate all waste in production.
Put simply, according to the lean mindset, all steps in the process that do not offer added value for the customer are considered waste. The aim is therefore to reduce activities and resources that do not create added value for the customer.
Waste can occur in many different forms:
- Defective products and rejects
- Overproduction
- Superfluous transportation
- Waiting times
- Too much material in the warehouse
- Unnecessary movement of employees
- Unused knowledge of employees
- Processes executed twice
More efficiency can be achieved with lean production. In order to eliminate waste in production, companies can apply lean management methods in a targeted manner. In this way, more resource efficiency and sustainability can be achieved in production.
Origin and meaning
The lean concept became popular in the 1990s. However, the origin of the basic idea of lean emerged as early as the 1950s at Toyota in Japan. Lean production or lean manufacturing can be assigned to the superordinate term “lean management”.
Lean production means that care is taken not to waste resources such as labor or materials in production. The aim is to increase production efficiency by reducing costs and increasing productivity.
Advantages of lean production
Leaner production ensures greater resource efficiency and has a number of advantages:
- Lower costs due to lower material and energy consumption.
- Competitive advantage through cost savings thanks to lean production.
- Improvement of production.
- Reducing the environmental impact and improving the sustainability of the company.
Implementation and lean management methods
There are a variety of methods in lean management for eliminating waste and implementing lean production. Examples of methods that can help to achieve leaner production are: 5S method, Just-In-Time, Kaizen, Jidoka and standardization of work processes.
Further useful information
Lean Production: Mit diesen Methoden erreichen Sie eine ressourceneffiziente Produktion!