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Lean Thinking and Sam
Lean Thinking and Sam
Johan Arts
Director of Industry Marketing
MRO Software
100 Crosby Drive
Bedford, MA 01730
Tel: +1 (800) 244-3346
Fax: +1 (781) 280-2202
www.mro.com
Lean Thinking and Strategic Asset Management
1. Introduction..........................................................................................................3
2. Lean principles......................................................................................................3
3. Strategic Asset Management................................................................................6
4. Lean thinking and risk.........................................................................................8
5. Summary and conclusion.....................................................................................8
6. About MRO Software............................................................................................9
7. How MRO Software has adopted lean thinking................................................10
8. Sources:................................................................................................................10
1. Introduction
The principles of lean thinking are applied in manufacturing companies around the
world with great success because of their impact on company performance. However,
if not executed with the appropriate support systems and infrastructure in place, an
improvement project based on lean thinking can adversely impact the company’s risk
and can lead to serious business disruption.
This paper investigates the impact of lean thinking on one of the support functions,
the Maintenance Department. By removing waste from the value stream, the
dependency on reliable performance of the assets (people, tools and machines)
dramatically increases. Reliable assets become an absolute prerequisite for running
the business. There simply is less and less room for error.
Companies that are implementing lean thinking should consider strategic asset
management approaches that help improve the reliability of assets while optimising
the cost of maintenance and operations across a wide range of asset classes.
2. Lean principles
Lean thinking is all about the removal of waste from the value chain. Waste is defined
as any (human) activity which absorbs resources but creates no value. This definition
includes mistakes which require rectification, production of items of no market value
and processing steps which aren’t actually needed. Lean thinking provides a way to
specify value, prioritize value-creating actions, conduct these activities without
interruption when requested, and perform them more effectively. In short, lean
thinking is lean because it provides a way to do more -- with less -- while providing
customers exactly what they want.
Porsche AG
to finished vehicle from six weeks to three days, and cut parts inventories by
90 percent
The principles of lean thinking can be defined in five key concepts that are outlined
below:
Value
The critical starting point for lean thinking is value. Value can only be defined by the
customer or purchaser. And it’s only meaningful when expressed in terms of a
specific product which meets the customer’s need at a specific price.
Value stream
The value stream is the set of all the specific actions required to bring product
through the three critical management tasks of any business:
problem-solving;through detailed design and engineering to production launch,
information management; from order-taking through detailed scheduling to delivery
and the physical transformation; from raw materials to a finished product in the hands
of the customer.
Flow
Once value has been specified, the value stream for a product fully mapped, and
wasteful steps eliminated, it’s time for the next step in lean thinking: Make the
remaining value-creating steps flow. Instead of having activities performed by
distinctive departments, all of the activities pertaining to the completion of a product
or service should be organized in a single, uninterrupted flow.
Pull
Once a company has placed its revenue generating assets in a flow concept, the next
step is to start making product only when there is actual demand from a customer,
instead of working against a forecast. This concept is called “pull” and ensures that
no waste in the form of unwanted products is being created.
Perfection
Once companies have implemented all of the above lean principles, those involved
are often made aware that there is no end to the process of reducing effort, time,
space, cost and mistakes while offering a product which is ever more close to what
the customer actually wants. A strive for perfection can drive additional rounds of
improvement.
1
The Porsche case is an excerpt from the book “Lean Thinking” by J. Womack and D. Jones and has a
number of footnotes with assumptions and details on how calculations for this table are made.
The key functional activities in the bicycle manufacturing process are tube
cutting, tube bending, mitering, welding, washing and painting of the frame
and handle bars, and final assembly of the complete bike. Most traditional
manufacturing companies have organized their production layout along the
lines of these functional groupings.
Finished
Compo
stores
nent Frame parts storage Frame Welding Tube Bending
and
Storage
shipping
In the continuous flow layout, the production process is laid out in the
sequence of the process steps required to make the bike, removing all
requirements for non-value added movements between functional
departments.
2
The Bicycle case is an excerpt from the book “Lean Thinking” by J. Womack and D. Jones.
In the new, flow-oriented layout, single large machines have been replaced or
broken into multiple small machines. Now bikes can proceed continuously,
one at a time, from tube cutting, to mitering, to bending, to welding, to
washing, to painting and to final assembly without ever stopping. In order to
realize this, changeover times have been reduced using SMED or like
approaches. The inventory between the stations has been reduced and is
moved from stage to stage using a pull-based system. The size of the work
teams can be geared to the production volume of the cell.
Strategic asset management strives to maximize asset performance for the lowest
total cost of ownership while taking into account risk, safety and compliance and
management with a limited set of resources.
To get continuous flow systems to flow for more than a minute or two at a time, every
machine/asset must be completely “capable;” that is, they must always be in proper
condition to run when needed and every part made must be correct for the process.
The reliability of the assets is the responsibility of the maintenance department which
is responsible for the asset management function. Strategic asset management helps
companies to maximize the asset reliability and performance required for a lean
manufacturing implementation.
An easy way to explain the impact of lean thinking on the risk profile of the company
is to think in terms of insurance. If an organization considers a “buffer stock” as a type
of insurance policy that can reduce the risk that a customer order cannot be shipped,
then the implementation of the lean principles drives the company to remove these
buffer stocks, and the risk of non-delivery increases.
The company needs to take out another insurance policy in the form of more reliable
assets that help to mitigate this risk. Strategic asset management helps companies to
implement better asset management programs that help to increase asset reliability.
By removing waste from the value chain, the dependency on reliable performance of
the assets (people, tools and machines) dramatically increases. Reliable assets
become an absolute prerequisite for running the business.
Using the Strategic Asset Management Methodology, companies can evaluate when
to apply specific maintenance philosophies and techniques such as RCM, TPM etc.
SAMM also provides a standardized approach to manage projects using a risk-based
approach.
MRO Software is the leading provider of strategic asset management solutions. The
Company’s integrated suite of applications optimizes performance, improves
productivity and service levels and enables asset-related sourcing and procurement
across the entire spectrum of strategic assets.
MRO Software (Nasdaq: MROI) is a global company based in Bedford, Mass., with
approximately 900 employees, 10,000 customers and more than 260,000 end-users.
The Company markets its products through a direct sales organization in combination
with a network of international distributors. MRO Software has sales offices
throughout North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific and Latin America. Additional
information on MRO Software can be found at http://www.mro.com. MRO
SoftwareTM is a trademark of MRO Software, Inc.
8. Sources
Certain parts of this white paper are excerpted from the book “Lean Thinking” by
James Womack and Daniel Jones, Free Press, 1996.