Lean Manufacturing For a Sweet Retirement

You have been working hard all of your life for your retirement. Often, we get so focused on our long term goals that we overlook the small things we can do to improve our outlook and performance. One of the best ways to do this is incorporating the concept of lean manufacturing to improve upon and even surpass long term goals. So what is lean manufacturing anyways?

Principles of Lean Manufacturing

As a manufacturer, much of your time and energy are wasted simply because your company lacks the proper tools to eliminate small increments of wasted time and effort, or what is referred to as the 7 wastes. These are:

• Overproduction
• Waiting
• Transport
• Motion
• Over processing
• Inventory
• Defects

Materials are wasted when you produce more than is needed, Time is wasted by waiting for completed processes, and movement is wasted by people moving without real purpose. Processing is wasted by taking excessive steps to complete a task. Inventory is wasted when items are overproduced and defects spend valuable time on sub-par product. By improving on these problem areas, we make the most of our manufacturing time.

Key Concepts

Lean manufacturing has developed 25 essential lean tools that enhance efficiency, quality, effort and performance. By organizing your workspace, you eliminate time wasted searching for tools. By seeking out limitations and working to reduce or eliminate restraints on production, you create a more productive environment. By engaging your workforce on the ground level, you gain a practical idea of what is and what is not working and you can adjust your production model accordingly. The overreaching theme in all of the tools is waste reduction.

Incremental Progress

Lean manufacturing encourages all workers to collectively engage in Kaizen (continuous improvement) through incremental measures. There is always one thing that can be improved upon. By focusing on these small things, each worker will feel a sense of accomplishment which in turn encourages coworkers to communicate and find more areas to improve upon. As each individual identifies their problem areas and streamlines their production, bit by bit, individual performance is streamlined which in turn fosters teamwork and everyone improves.

Theory of Constraints

This theory states that the most effective means to improve production is to identify the most limiting constraint, and systematically improving it until it no longer affects production. Once that is accomplished, you can move on to the next restraint. Many businesses try to tackle all constraints at once, or take shots in the dark and continuously neglect key issues holding back production.

Total Productive Maintenance

This holistic approach encourages operators to share responsibility of all heavy equipment by continuously maintaining the machinery. A heavy focus is places on safety as well. By fostering preventative maintenance, machinery breaks down less, downtime is reduced, and responsibility is shared.

By incorporating lean manufacturing, you can exceed production expectation, build a healthy profit and retire with style. By applying these concepts to your life, you enhance your sense of fulfillment and satisfaction in retired life.