Essay Sample on Lean Concept

Introduction

The lean concept is the idea or mindset that is aimed at minimizing wastes to maximize customer value. Of importance, in this case, is the understanding that it is not a one-off event, but instead, it is a mindset. It is always staying alert to the areas and sources of waste that are the cause of decreased value delivery to the customer, and ensuring that all these are kept at bay (Bhasin 14). Lean manufacturing is taken to be only for the manufacturing sector; however, the lean concept is applicable in all other areas of business. Recently, the concept has been used in the design, accounting, supply chain, and construction to name but a few. Although each has been tailored to work well within their respective department, the main relentless pursuit remains clear; waste elimination (Aherne 12). This paper is aimed at discussing the lean concept with a focus on Joe's Garage in the book "All I Need to know about Manufacturing I Learned in Joe's Garage."

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In the book, "All I Need to know about Manufacturing I Learned in Joe's Garage," the writer talks about Joe a Vice President for manufacturing at Garret Gear Company. He requests his friends Sandy (a trusted employee), and Ralph Morita (of Yamachi Gear) help him build shelves for his garage (Miller and Schenk 23-78). The project stalls because there were inconsistencies in the drawings. All the confusion was caused by having two drawings from the engineering and manufacturing engineering departments for the same work at the same time. Ralph offers his opinion about how the effective company practices such as nagara, kaizen (improvement), heijunka (soothing production), jidoka (intelligent automation), and poka-yoke (error proofing) (Miller and Schenk 12-79).

The lean concept is said to have been created by Toyota production system's founder Taichi Ohno (1912-1990) (Aherne 18). The idea was to ensure that there was less wastage, high production with efficiency and effectiveness that reflected in customer satisfaction and general output. Indeed, the concept has grown to be used all over the world in both large and small organizations (Bhasin 23). It is essential to explain how lean concept works. Four elements are necessary for a lean concept. They include; elimination of waste, if it does not add any value to the customer, do not do it, understand manufacturing constraints and put emphasis on them, and realize that efficiency can only be measured by the quantity of products shipped (Miller and Schenk 62). There are eight types of waste found in manufacturing; transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over processing, over production, underutilization of employees, and defects (Bhasin 20).

Conclusion

In the end, the lean concept is essential in all aspects of the business from production/manufacturing to the after sale segment of the business. Indeed, Joe's Garage has helped bring out in a simple way how to organize work in such a way that we can keep waste at bay. My opinion regarding the lean concept is that it is essential for all organizations to be it manufacturing, sales or any business to implement lean systems in all their departments within the organization. Keeping lean will ensure that the costs are kept at a minimum, efficiency and effectiveness are upheld, and in the end, the customer gets value in the price as well as the quality of the product. Even with that, leadership will be critical in implementing such changes that are necessary for streamlining the activities in an organization.

Works Cited

Aherne, Joe. "Think lean." Nursing Management, vol. 13, no. 10, 2007, pp. 13-15.

Bhasin, Sanjay. "Clarification of the Lean Concept." Lean Management Beyond Manufacturing, 2015, pp. 11-26.

Miller, William B, and Vicki L. Schenk. All I Need to Know About Manufacturing I Learned in Joe's Garage: World Class Manufacturing Made Simple. Bayrock P, 2008.