The five key principles of lean manufacturing, often referred to

as the "Toyota Production System" or TPS, are:

1. *Identify Value*: The first principle involves understanding
and identifying what value means from the customer's
perspective. Value is anything for which a customer is willing to
pay. This principle emphasizes the importance of focusing on
the features and qualities of a product or service that are
meaningful to the customer.
2. *Map the Value Stream*: Once value is identified, the next
step is to map the value stream, which is the series of steps or
processes required to deliver the product or service to the
customer. This involves identifying all the activities, both value-
adding and non-value-adding, along the entire value stream.
3. *Create Flow*: Creating flow involves eliminating waste and
creating a smooth, continuous flow of work through the value
stream. This requires organizing processes to minimize delays,
interruptions, and batch sizes, allowing work to flow steadily
from one step to the next with minimal waiting or rework.
4. *Establish Pull*: Pull systems are used to align production
with customer demand by only producing what is needed, when
it is needed, and in the quantity needed. This principle involves
establishing pull-based systems where production is initiated
based on customer demand rather than forecasts or arbitrary
schedules.
5. *Strive for Perfection*: The final principle of lean
manufacturing is to continually strive for perfection by
relentlessly pursuing improvement. This involves continuously
identifying and eliminating waste, optimizing processes,
empowering employees to suggest improvements, and
fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
These five principles serve as the foundation of lean
manufacturing, guiding organizations in their efforts to create
value, eliminate waste, and improve efficiency and quality in
their operations.
The 3M approach in lean manufacturing is often referred
to as "Muda, Mura, and Muri." These three Japanese
terms represent different types of waste that are
targeted for elimination in lean manufacturing:
1. *Muda*: Muda refers to any activity that consumes
resources but does not add value to the product or
service from the customer's perspective. This includes
activities such as overproduction, waiting, unnecessary
transportation, excess inventory, unnecessary motion,
defects, and unused employee creativity or talent. The
goal is to identify and eliminate these wasteful activities
to streamline processes and improve efficiency.
2. *Mura*: Mura refers to unevenness or inconsistency
in production processes. This can include fluctuations in
production volume, variation in workloads, or
unevenness in material flow. Mura can lead to
inefficiencies, overburdening of resources, and
increased waste. The goal is to smooth out production
processes to create a more consistent and predictable
workflow.
3. *Muri*: Muri refers to overburden or strain placed on
people, equipment, or processes. This can occur when
tasks are too difficult, when equipment is overloaded, or
when processes are not well-designed. Muri can lead to
decreased productivity, increased errors, and employee
burnout. The goal is to identify and eliminate sources of
overburden to create a more balanced and sustainable
work environment.
By addressing these three types of waste, organizations
can improve their efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance
customer satisfaction in lean manufacturing.

In lean manufacturing, the 5S methodology is a system

for organizing workplace cleanliness and efficiency. The
5S's stand for:
1. *Sort (Seiri)*: This involves sorting through all items in
a workspace and removing unnecessary items. The goal
is to keep only what is necessary for the current work
being done and remove everything else.
2. *Set in Order (Seiton)*: Once unnecessary items have
been removed, the next step is to arrange the necessary
items in a neat and orderly manner. This includes
assigning specific locations for tools, equipment, and
materials to make them easy to find and use.
3. *Shine (Seiso)*: This step focuses on cleanliness and
maintenance. It involves thoroughly cleaning the
workspace and equipment, as well as identifying and
fixing any issues that could lead to inefficiency or safety
hazards.
4. *Standardize (Seiketsu)*: Standardization involves
creating and implementing standard procedures for
maintaining the first three S's. This ensures that
everyone follows the same practices and helps sustain
the improvements made in the previous steps.
5. *Sustain (Shitsuke)*: The final step is to sustain the
improvements achieved through the first four S's. This
involves continuously reinforcing the new standards and
practices, training employees, and regularly auditing the
workspace to maintain organization and cleanliness over
the long term.
These 5S principles are aimed at improving efficiency,
safety, and morale in the workplace by creating an
organized and streamlined environment

In lean manufacturing, there are typically 8 types of

waste, often remembered by the acronym
"DOWNTIME":
1. *Defects*: Defects occur when products or services
do not meet customer specifications, leading to rework,
scrap, or customer dissatisfaction.
2. *Overproduction*: Overproduction involves producing
more goods or services than are needed at the current
time, leading to excess inventory, storage costs, and
potential obsolescence.
3. *Waiting*: Waiting refers to any idle time during the
production process, whether it's waiting for materials,
equipment, information, or approvals. This wastes
valuable time and resources.
4. *Non-utilized Talent*: Non-utilized talent occurs when
the skills, knowledge, or creativity of employees are not
fully utilized or leveraged within the organization, leading
to missed opportunities for improvement.
5. *Transportation*: Transportation waste involves
unnecessary movement of materials, products, or
information between different locations or processes,
which adds no value and increases the risk of damage
or loss.
6. *Inventory*: Excess inventory ties up capital, space,
and resources. It can lead to increased carrying costs,
obsolescence, and decreased responsiveness to
customer demand.

7. *Motion*: Motion waste refers to unnecessary

movement or motion by workers, equipment, or
materials within the production process, such as
excessive walking, reaching, or bending. This can lead
to inefficiency, fatigue, and increased risk of injury.

8. *Extra Processing*: Extra processing occurs when

more work is done on a product or service than is
necessary to meet customer requirements. This includes
activities such as unnecessary inspections, rework, or
over-engineering.
By identifying and eliminating these 8 wastes,
organizations can improve their efficiency, reduce costs,
and increase customer satisfaction in lean
manufacturing processes.

What Is Lean Manufacturing?

Lean manufacturing is a production system that
focuses on reducing waste, creating customer
value and seeking continuous process
improvement. This is achieved by applying lean
principles, techniques and tools to eliminate waste
from a manufacturing cycle.

Identify and Create Customer Value

One of the main principles of the lean manufacturing methodology is to

create customer value through the efficient manufacturing of products
and services. The first step in the lean manufacturing process is to
identify what product features are important for customers and which
aren’t so you can focus on what’s important. Once the customer defines
what’s valuable, you can create a product that only has what’s
necessary and remove the unnecessary work and components
associated with it.

Value Stream Mapping

The value stream of a lean manufacturing system can be simply defined

as the set of actions or steps that add value to customers during the
manufacturing process from beginning to end. A value stream map
allows managers to visualize each step in the production process to
identify waste and opportunities for improvement to make the process
more efficient and better serve customers.

Create Flow

One of the goals of lean manufacturing is process improvement. A

manufacturing process can be improved by diagnosing wastes or
inefficiencies such as a poorly planned manufacturing facility layout. By
fixing functional barriers such as those, you can improve the flow of the
value stream.

Pull System

The pull system consists of starting new work only when there’s
customer demand for it. This eliminates unnecessary steps in the
production process such as transporting materials, overproducing
products and storing excess inventory, which are considered waste. This
is what supports just-in-time production.

Continuous Improvement or Kaizen

Kaizen can be translated to continuous improvement. It’s a business

practice that consists of making small, incremental changes over time to
a process. In lean manufacturing, kaizen allows businesses to
permanently identify problems and develop solutions to maximize
customer value and eliminate waste.

It’s through these principles that the lean manufacturing system helps
businesses improve their production process by eliminating waste. It
simplifies operational structure to understand, perform and manage the
work environment. To do all of this simultaneously, Toyota applies a
mentoring methodology called Senpai and Kohai, which translates to
senior and junior. This fosters lean thinking throughout an organizational
structure from the ground up.

Types of Waste in the Lean Manufacturing

Process

Waste isn’t a simple concept in lean management. If approached simply,

then the reduction will be limited. For lean project management to be
most effective, all types of waste must be identified and eliminated.

First, let’s look at the seven lean manufacturing waste types developed
by Taiichi Ohno, chief engineer at Toyota, for the Toyota production
system (TPS).

1. Unnecessary transportation: Unnecessary

transportation of employees, tools, materials or
equipment is a waste that must be eliminated by
optimizing factory layouts.

2. Excess inventory: Having excess inventory can lead to

several problems like not identifying defective products in
time or increased lead time in the production process,
among others.

3. Unnecessary motion of people, equipment or

machinery: This waste is eliminated by applying
scientific management techniques to optimize the motion
that people, equipment or machinery do during the
production process.
 4. Waiting (Idle workers or idle equipment): This waste
type occurs when employees can’t work because they’re
waiting on materials or equipment, or in the opposite
case, there can be idle equipment waiting on
maintenance.

5. Overproduction: Overproduction leads to excess

inventory and other issues in the manufacturing process.
That’s why lean manufacturing implements the just-in-
time production method which consists of only producing
what’s demanded by customers.

6. Over-processing: This waste consists of adding

components or features to a product that aren’t required
by the customer, making them unnecessary.

7. Defects: Having defective products it’s a waste that must

be reduced as much as possible. They can affect
customer satisfaction and increase costs.

In addition to these waste types, lean manufacturing experts have

proposed an eighth waste type called “unused talent or ingenuity,” which
occurs when workers’ opinions aren’t taken into account when identifying
waste types and improving manufacturing processes. Their feedback is
important because they get to experience issues every day and their
thoughts can be helpful in the value stream mapping process.

To simplify things and make it easier to understand for your team

members, these waste types can be grouped into three broader
categories.
Mura: Unevenness, or waste due to fluctuations in demand. This can
come from customer requests, but it can also be due to an organization
adding new services and thus additional work.

Muri: Overburden, or waste due to trying to do too much at once. This

has to do with resource allocation. When too few people try to do too
much work, they often waste time switching from one task to another.

Muda: Non-value-adding work, or process waste. This waste comes as

a byproduct of something else. Think about three things: value, work that
adds immediate value for a customer; necessary waste, which is
supporting activities that add value; and unnecessary waste, activities
that don’t add value. Therefore, lean maximizes value, minimizes
necessary waste and removes unnecessary waste altogether.