Essay Sample on Lean Thinking: Enhancing Efficiency, Reducing Cost, Reducing Waste

Introduction

Lean thinking is considered to be a business strategy that is focused on providing a new way of thinking about how to organize various human activities that deliver more benefits or advantages to the entire society and other key values to the people while trying to reduce waste. While the just in time model is persevered to be a crucial inventory management strategy and a type of lean method that is created to enhance efficiency, reduce cost and reduce the amount of waste mainly by receiving only the needed goods (Wahdiat, 2016). Both the just in time model and lean thinking are highly adopted by various businesses or organizations that intend to improve their performance and position within the market. There are several reasons why most companies usually decide to adopt the just in time model and lean thinking. Some of these reasons include; first, they usually play a key role in reducing the amount of waste both in terms of goods and time. Reducing this wastes usually enable the companies to be in a good position to produce and deliver goods with a higher value at a very low expense while still enhancing employees' competence and confidentiality. Secondly, they are both focused on reducing the cost of production in order to produce quality goods at a cheaper or lower rate. These approaches usually help to cut costs mainly by reducing the cost incurred on unwanted goods and focusing on a specific line of production (Wahdiat, 2016). Thirdly they are mainly focused on improving the efficiency of the company mainly by enhancing the company's production process. For instance, when a company focuses on a specific line of production, it is able to produce quality goods within a short time and meet the customers' demands on time.

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Agile Supply Chain

The agile supply chain is mainly focused on improving responsiveness, efficiency, productivity, and flexibility in the production and supply of goods. This type of supply chain usually depends on real-time data to make crucial decisions regarding the company's daily operations (Tarafdar & Qrunfleh, 2017). Due to the current COVID 19 pandemic, I tend to think that agile supply chain is the best concept to be used in this kind of situation. Some of the reason why this is the right concept include, first, the agile supply chain is flexible in terms of being able to effectively adapt to the new and changing stations. For instance, COVID 19 is changing the market demand for various products; therefore, when using this supply chain method, it will be easy to meet the current market demands. Secondly, an agile supply chain is able to adapt to unexpected economic changes. Such as the economic wings. For instance, the COVID 19 is likely to cause significant economic swings, but when using the agile supply chain, it will be easy to reach or attain the market demand.

Types of Wastes in Production

To improve efficiency and the quality of goods produced within the workplace, companies have to be aware of several types of waste. Some of this waste include, first, defects, this are the products that are perceived to have deviated from the original customer's expectations. In most cases, the defective products are usually replaced; all they require is complete paperwork and labor to process the defects. The environmental costs of the defects include the used raw materials, the extra space required, and the defective products that need disposal. Secondly, over-processing, which refers to any specific component of industrial manufacturing that is generally not necessary. For instance, adding more value to a certain product than the customers need. The environmental effect of this waste is generally the amount of excess labor, parts and raw material used (Arunagiri & Gnanavelbabu, 2014). Thirdly, inventory waste is the waste that is usually produced by the unprocessed inventory. Some of the inventory waste includes the waste of generally transporting the inventory, waste of storing, and the money held by the unprocessed inventory. Fourth, overproduction. These is considered to be the most serious type of waste since it can create all other types of waste and also create an excess inventory. Overproduction tends to have various serious environmental consequences such as a lot of the spoilt products will have to be tossed, and there will be an extra cost on waste disposal.

Reasons with Suitable Examples

Lean thinking is very crucial in production since it involves using an approach that provides a new strategy of thinking on how to organize human activities in order to deliver maximum benefits. There are several reasons why companies usually chose to use lean thinking. Some of these reasons include, first, lean thinking helps to free up space, thus creating more room to store more new products and equipments that facilitate growth. For instance, the free up space may be used to put up new machines that may be used to improve growth. Secondly, products are usually created at a faster rate. The products usually take only a few days to move from raw material to finished products. For instance, a company can produce and supply a product within hours or a day. Quick production helps the company to deliver the customer's order on time. Thirdly, the company's product tends to improve since there are fewer defects that are produced during the production process. Quality products tend to move at a faster rate and also tend to attract more buyers, thus improving the company's competitiveness within the market. Lean thinking also tends to have significant benefits from the suppliers to the end-users. Some of these benefits include; first, the customers usually receive and enjoy quality products due to the improved production method. Secondly, the suppliers are usually required to maintain a constant supply of raw materials since the products usually move at a very fast rate. Thirdly the products tend to have minimal waste since the production method used is effective.

References

Arunagiri, P., & Gnanavelbabu, A. (2014). Identification of major lean production waste in automobile industries using the weighted average method. Procedia Engineering, 97, 2167-2175. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2014.12.460

Tarafdar, M., & Qrunfleh, S. (2017). Agile supply chain strategy and supply chain performance: complementary roles of supply chain practices and information systems capability for agility. International Journal of Production Research, 55(4), 925-938. Retrieved from https://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/id/eprint/80046/1/Agile_6_8_2016_Rev5.pdf

Wahdiat, I. S. (2016). Analysis of lean accounting, JIT and balance scorecard in the company's lean manufacturing. International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research, 5(02). Retrieved from https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Analysis-Of-Lean-Accounting%2C-JIT-And-Balance-In-The-Wahdiat/2b135aa653519966323e70972bcbdbdc9cea7e35