1. Use long life fluorescent bulbs and lamps. Long life fluorescent lamps require Customized Manufacturing System changing less frequently which will reduce labor costs over the bulbs lifespan.
2. Regular light bulbs can be replaced by more energy efficient compact fluorescent bulbs that yield the same amount and quality of light while reducing energy costs.
3. Replace lighting fixtures with newer energy efficient fixtures. Example: Replace 400 watt metal-halide light fixtures with T8 fluorescent bay fixtures.
4. Alternative lighting solutions provide serious energy savings in a short amount of time. Perform lighting audits to calculate energy saving opportunities from specific upgrades.
5. Think outside the box when expediting transportation of replacement parts. Contact the factory directly for replacement parts and arrange for speedy alternative transportation of needed parts to reduce down time on production lines.
6. Out service your competitors by reducing customer down time due to late deliveries.
7. Track ordering activity. Scrutinize automatic purchase requisitions and determine if the items are really needed when ordered.
8. Outsourcing of inventory control with keep-fill program helps regulate supplies, and takes the burden off plant personnel freeing them up to do more productive duties.
9. Reduce training costs by arranging for employees to be trained on processes from suppliers providing product. Lighting Industry For instance, suppliers of fuse boxes could be asked to train mechanics on servicing the new boxes.
10. Take advantage of special offers made by suppliers for free services like training, storage cabinets, etc.
Organizing and labeling storage facilities reduce labor costs because less time is spent locating and collecting work materials.…
Tag: waste
Eliminating Waste Through Lean Manufacturing Practices
Lean manufacturing describes a set of methodologies that are intended to improve the quality and efficiency of a warehouse or manufacturing facility. The basic principles are not revolutionary and reflect many of the ideals that have been slowly implemented since assembly line production first started. The concept is to create a better product for the end consumer. This goal is achieved by reducing inefficiencies throughout the manufacturing process. The way that individual businesses deal with these inefficiencies varies by How To Be Seen As An Expert and location. There are three broad areas where many manufacturers make lean changes in order to improve performance.
Motion
Large warehouses do not always grow in logical ways. Shelving is sometimes placed in an open location even though it is inconvenient for workers. Similarly, the placement of gravity conveyor systems that move parts could be the result of open space and not because of an intelligent layout. Lean methodologies measure the amount of movement that each employee must undertake in order to complete the most common tasks throughout the day. Optimizing these movements means that a worker will travel shorter distances when completing a job. This reduces the cost of production and improves the output of the individual.
Inventory
Many manufacturers maintain a large inventory of parts to ensure that the assembly line never stops. Lean manufacturing principles see this type of inventory buildup as a waste. It is considered wasteful, because storing a large quantity of components requires an equally large amount of storage space. Special equipment must sometimes be used to pick the necessary parts when they are located in inconvenient areas. Classification Of Manufacturing Industries Storing components in this way also means that there is distance between the assembly point and the pick location. A lean manufacturer maintains smaller batches of parts. Each of these batches is kept close to the assembly point. This increases efficiency by reducing the amount of space that is needed and by placing the assembler closer to the products so that inventory problem are identified immediately.
Waiting
The concept of waiting as waste is not unique to lean practices. Waiting describes when one employee must wait for others to complete a task before being able to start work on an item. Waiting is a waste of time and resources. Optimizing movement and placing component inventories near each station will help to reduce this problem. Using smarter types of equipment, such as gravity feed conveyor systems, will also produce a better result, since an entire line will not have to stop if just one person slows down for a minute. Eliminating long waiting times often involves changes in both manufacturing processes as well as equipment.…
Is Lean Manufacturing Just About Waste Reduction?
I have been involved in Lean Manufacturing in one form or another since the 80s working for various first tier suppliers to the automotive How Do Industrial Engineers Benefit Society before branching out to other industries as a consultant. People’s perception of what lean is has changed quite a lot over the years, and the reputation of lean has been damaged many times over by failed or poor implementations.
My own perception of lean has changed also, as a young engineer I have gone for the glory of quick wins in my areas of responsibility to show how clever I was. As I have grown into the role I have realized that these implementations and changes tended to revert, that the savings that were expected were not realized long term and I had to think why.
I looked around at the many consultancies that are offering to implement lean manufacturing and have to pass comment on what they consider lean to be. If you read their definitions and their sales pitch as to what they can offer you will see that nearly all focus very heavily on elimination or reduction of waste. They can reduce your organizations costs significantly by identifying and removing your waste adding many percentage points to your profit. They illustrate these improvements with up to date case studies and happy business owners posing in front of their new BMWs that they brought with the increased profits. Who would not want to hire them, it sounds like free money for all!
But you also read about the many failures and the implementations where things revert back to the old ways within a few months, or even worse. These “failures” give lean a bad name and relegate Lean back into the “Fad of the year” category along with all of the other business improvement ideas that the management try to implement.
But most of these consultancies are falling into the same trap I did when I first started out, thinking that lean is about an inward focus on waste reduction. It is not! The first point of lean is “what is value in the eyes of the customer?” You have to identify what is valuable to the customer, what features and services do they really want, when do they want them, what price will they pay?
The attack on waste (wrongly) assumes that you are tackling the issues that prevent you from delivering value to the customer, some of what you will do will be right but often you remove flexibility and speed from the system by focusing only on cutting out costs. What then happens when the customer demand increases, or something fails within your company or your supplier, you end up putting back labor and reverting to old processes to tackle the issues.
Most lean implementations fail to define value, they fail to identify the full value stream and work out how to make that value flow at the pull of the customer. They also generally …