Name: Roshani Anil Pandey

College: Mulund College of Commerce

Course: BMS

Contact No: 9987411107

 The Definitive Guide to Waste Management Strategies in Lean
Manufacturing Process

The Practise of Lean Management process dates back to the late 1940s when Toyota created
its operating system known as Toyota Production System (TPS). John Krafcik later
popularised the term lean in 1988. Lean Manufacturing Process aims to increase productivity
while eliminating waste in industrial system. Making difficulties evident, addressing
problems and fixing problems are true goals of Lean production. I will try to explain it with
an example – A person is said to be lean if they are slim but appear healthy and robust.
Which means he/she has muscles but no fats. Similarly, while performing the lean
manufacturing process the firm or organisation focus on the muscles (which is value added
activity) and eliminate the fats (which is non-value-added activity).
Originating from manufacturing sector, the technique is now successfully used across
industries and domains as a management technique. The core principle of lean business
technique is waste reduction by minimising or eliminating anything that does not add value to
the customers. For example – Peter went out with his friends to eat burger and the burger
which previously costs dollar 10 is now sold at dollar 20. Peter anyway chooses to order the
burger and notice that there is absolutely no change in size, shape and ingredients even the
infrastructure was same, asking about the same he was told by the shop owners that they
hired MBA graduate as managers and replaced the staff with more qualified people which
lead to increase in cost of that burger. But do you think that it added value to the customer?
An obvious answer is no. So mostly the customer will avoid buying the burger from that shop
as it does not add value to him. But how does anything can add value to the customer? Here
is the approach through four ways:
1) Decrease in the cost by keeping performance same
2) Keeping cost same and increase in performance
3) Slightly increase in cost and increase in performance comparatively more than the
cost
4) Decrease in cost and increase in performance.
And all of the above approaches can be established only if proper waste management
strategies are implemented by the firm or organisation so that value is added to the customers
and the firm does not witness any loss. So, you might wonder, what are the proper waste
management strategies that can be implemented in lean manufacturing process?
Sorting garbage into several categories is one of the first ways that lean manufacturing may
assist in the elimination of waste. Traditional classifications of waste include flaws, extra
processing, overproduction, waiting, inventory, moving, motion, and unutilized talent.
Keeping in mind the various sorts of waste at work will help you identify areas for
improvement so that issues can be resolved and waste can be reduced. The Lean
manufacturing system won't solve all the issues in the factory overnight, eliminating all
waste. This set of tactics recognises that waste will always be present in workplaces.
However, the objective is to gradually reduce that to zero.
By using a continuous improvement approach, the organisation will not only be made more
efficient in the short term but also throughout the long term. Few of the waste management
strategies are listed below:
1) Transport: Unnecessary transit of items within a factory line is the result of a number
of issues, including a disorganised factory floor, intricate handling systems, high
batch sizes, dispersed storage, and overproduction. All of these lead to unnecessary
travel. Moving resources from one place to another is wasteful because it doesn't add
anything. Moving supplies requires paying employees, and maintaining vehicles is
expensive. A bad floor plan might make operations farther apart, which can cause
processing delays and high transportation expenses.
2) Inventory: Until it is sold to the client, inventory costs the maker money. Storage
space is needed for every finished good or material component while they are being
sold off the shelf. Large inventory exacerbates the wastes of lean manufacturing by
raising the possibility of transit damage and adding to transportation delays.
3) Motion: When human or mechanical actions are not as modest or straightforward as
they could be, unnecessary motion results. Your engineer may need to bend over
repeatedly during a shift to pick up heavy goods; this creates strain on their back and
might be avoided by simply feeding those materials at waist-height as opposed to on
the floor. All of this makes sense because even robots eventually deteriorate.
4) Waste: A sloppy production timeline results in unsynchronized activity, causing
waiting within the production process. Idle time occurs when interdependent
procedures are not in synch. operators are kept waiting, or work slowly to
accommodate slack cogs in the wheel.
5) Over production: Waste grows from overproduction! It happens when you produce
more merchandise than what your customer needs. Due to unreasonably huge batch
sizes and an inability to meet client demand, this results in storage issues. Lean
manufacturing wastes can be reduced by streamlining your operations to satisfy
consumer demand, which requires that goods be given directly to the client in a timely
manner (and not kept).
6) Defects: The waste that is most obvious is that which is defective. Poka-yoke systems
can reduce errors even though they can never be completely eradicated (processes that
help equipment operators to avoid mistakes). This calls for detailed process
documentation and standardised training to ensure that everyone adheres to a set of
procedures that produces a consistent outcome.
7) Wasted talent: An employee's skills aren't being fully utilised if all they do is move
supplies or equipment from one location to another (transportation). Non-utilized
talent also refers to management's disregard for machine operator feedback on
ongoing quality improvement. In these ideas, management's failure to engage talent is
viewed as increasing the wastes of lean production.
8) Ineffective performance measures: A useful tool for converting a process to lean
manufacturing is machine monitoring. You can find waste by collecting an accurate
data reflection of the present operations. By giving the workers the option to track
their own performance and identify productivity norms, you can also empower them
while rewarding uniform, standardised working method.

By adopting all above strategies, firms can attract more revenue with better customer
satisfaction.
 Companies which do not Companies which follow
follow Waste Management Waste Management
Strategies Strategies

36%
COST COST
48% 52%
PROFIT PROFIT
64%

To conclude this by adopting waste strategy in lean manufacturing process, firm can improve
their cost optimization. Other than that, your workforce is your business, therefore ensuring
their productivity requires more than just constant supervision. They will be able to tell you
about any issues on your production line from personal experience, so pay attention to them.
Examining your current procedures and giving operators the freedom to help you organise the
manufacturing floor are key to eliminating waste. I am of the opinion that lean manufacturing
process is ageless and a lot of fundamentals of lean manufacturing process will never be fired
even in 2022 or further years even after the onset of smart technology.