Lean Manufacturing: An Approach for Waste Elimination

Abstract

Lean Manufacturing (LM), a manufacturing system and philosophy, was originally developed by Toyota, Japan and is now widely practiced by many manufacturers throughout the world. Lean manufacturing is a systematic approach to identifying and reducing waste (non value-added activities) through continuous improvement by flowing the product at the pull of the customer in pursuit of perfection. LM is important, primarily because of waste reduction and reduction in lead time. The objective of this paper is to identify Lean manufacturing practices in small scale industries. For this purpose some case studies were chosen and critical observations are identified. Some of these annotations are improper utilization of resources, quality tools for improvements and improper plan for location and layout. This paper includes one case study with the initiatives, observations, results and conclusions of the study carried out in a small scale industry.