A business process change

framework for examining lean

manufacturing
 Jaideep Motwani
 Chairperson & Professor
Department of Management, Seidman School
of Business, Grand Valley State University,
Grand Rapids, Michigan, USA
Introduction
• Developed By Taichi Ohno at Toyota Motor Company in the 1950s
• Involves changing and improving processes
• Primary goal of LM is cost reduction, or improvement of productivity
• LM involves the attack upon the system, i.e.re-engineering the whole
process, so that the common causes are much reduced. The system
then becomes more stable with far fewer variations on account of
common causes (Deming, 1986).
• lean manufacturing produces higher levels of quality, productivity and
better customer responsiveness(Krafcik, 1998; Nicholas, 1998).
Success Stories
Success Stories
Headquarters location: Livonia, Michigan, United
States
Number of employees: 66,100
Founded: 2002
Number of locations: 200

• Reduction in lost man days by 81 percent,

• time to move raw material cut by 61 percent,
• increased production inventory turns by 28
Cont.
Founder: John Deere
Founded: 1837
Headquarters: Moline, Illinois, U.S.
Products: Agriculture, construction,
forestry,
Consumer & commercial
equipment,
Diesel engines, automobiles
• continuous flow
• just-in-time material delivery system
• pull system of production
• continuous flow
Cont.
Founded: March 15, 1995; 24 years ago
Headquarters: Bethesda, Maryland, United
States
Industry: Advanced Technologies, Information
Security, Aerospace, Defense

• At Lockheed Martin Missile and Space Corporation,

• costs reduction 50%
• program cycle times cut by 50 per cent.
Lean
• Maximizing values
Any action or process customer willing to pay for
• Eliminating wastes
That do not add value to product
1. Muda (no value added to product)
2. Muri (unreasonable demand from resources)
3. Mura (lack Of Consistency)
• Constant improvement
7 Types of wastes
• Transportation(unnecessary movement of people and parts b/w process)
• Inventory(unnecessary storage of materials and products
• Motion(unnecessary movement of people and parts in process)
• Waiting(part of people waiting for completion)
• Over processing(doing more work than necessary)
• Overproduction(making products more than customer demands)
• Defects(not meet the quality requirements i.e. cracked,faulty)
Lean Thinking
• According to Womack and Jones (1996)
1. Correctly specify and enhance value.
2. Identify the value stream for each product and remove wasted
actions (muda).
3. Make the product flow without Interruptions.
4. Let the customer pull value from the producer.
5. Pursue perfection.
Tools for LM
• Takt time
• Line balancing
• One-piece Flow
• Self directed teams
• U-shaped cells
• Constraint Management
• Value Stream Mapping
Takt time
Line balancing
One-piece Flow

• Instead of working on batch work on single product

U-shaped cells
Case Analysis
• Medium-size automotive manufacturing corporation
• Midwest region of the USA.
• A tier one automotive supplier of electromechanical components
• The largest plant has successfully implemented the LM in the
manufacturing area.
• With automotive industry becoming increasingly price competitive, one
of the main focuses of the company was to reduce costs in order to
increase bottom line dollars.(op expenses,taxes,interests)
• The company had already successfully implemented Theory of
Constraints and had reduced their waste and cost substantially.
Cont.
• After meeting with several experts, the management decided to go
with LM.
• The implementation of LM begun a few years
• Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC). TSSC provides consulting and
implementation support free of charge to those organizations found
worthy of the total commitment required to implement the changes
expected.
• Company had already successfully implemented Theory of Constraints
and had reduced their waste and cost substantially
Kettinger Grover Business Process
Change(BPC)
• According to K&G (BPC) requires:
a strategic initiative where top managers act as leaders in defining
and communicating a vision of change;
an organizational environment willingness to learn;
culture readiness;
balanced network relationships;
technology leveragability and knowledge sharing;
prescribed process management and change management practices.
Construct 1: strategic initiatives
• Change begins with strategic initiatives by senior management.
• According to senior VP of CSC company’s approach to lean
manufacturing includes: utilization of outside expertise, training a
team within the company in lean principles, improving union
contracts, and focusing on continuous improvement events. He
realizes that in order to take full advantage of LM practices a
commitment by the entire company is needed. LM implementation
requires time, money, energy, and full company buy-in
Cont.
• Example, CSA company moved from traditional procurement practices
to lean procurement practices.
• With a traditional procurement system, resulted in the maintenance
of a large internal administration staff, a lot of paperwork, and slow
pace at which changes were made.
• By implementing lean procurement, the company was now focusing
on the key elements of the Toyota Production System (TPS). The areas
of TPS the company focused on include: value added (customers only
want to pay for what makes the product better), essential support
and waste reduction.
Construct 2: learning capacity
Adaptation to environmental
Learning goal changes

Adaptation Technological advancements +

learning from other organizations
CSC implement learning environment Toyota supplier Support Center
by implementing TSSC experiences.
Training to all employees open door suggestion policy.
Construct 3: Cultural readiness
Organization culture integrates Top Management + change agents are
individual learning with organizational prerequisites for (BPC)
learning
Common Culture & Innovative Behavior strategic thinking team ,business
analysts group and an operations group

Mapping of material and information Based on TPS (Toyota Production

flow System)

By Mapping Team will determine Where improvement needed

With help of organization members Reduction and removal of problem

Construct 4: Information technology leveragability
and knowledge-sharing capability

• Role of IT in the business process change project could be either

dominant or as an enabler.
• IT led projects are likely to fail if they don't capture the business and
human dimensions of processes.
• synergy between the business, human and IT dimensions of an
organization is recommended
• TPS key element is the utilization of visual controls for better
monitoring process control
Cont.
• Visual control provide
- finding out where items belonged;
-checking the status of work in process; and
-verifying what the standard procedure was for doing something, among others.
Visual control
• employees felt that they were too busy
• spending time on creating visual controls, and some felt that visual controls
could only be used on the factory floor
• painting outlines on tool pegboards reminded people of where certain tools
were suppose to go
Construct 5: Network relationships
• superior performance is result of co-operative, interpersonal and
group behavior
• Research showed partnering with external suppliers beneficiary
• Worked with vendors for LM implementation process
• Allowed vendor for inputs and improvement.
• When problem occurred manger met vendor for fixture
• Vendor trained for LM and they actively implement LM.
Construct 6: change management practice
• Two forces favor of change and forces of resistance
• Balance is needed b/w above two
• Organizations, groups, or individuals resist changes that they perceive
threaten them.
• tactics for accomplishing change
• employee involvement, communication about the change, and leadership
nature
• Implemented methodology recommended by TSSC
• Teaching of employees how LM will help everyone.
• Problem as opportunity and challenge as learning experience,
Construct 7: process management practice

• Process management is defined as a set of concepts ,methods and

practices to improve, optimize, analyze the process
• Successful process management uses process measurement (use of
process metrics, process information capture, improvement feedback
loop, and process audit), tools and techniques (e.g. quality control
tools, data flow diagrams, CASE tools, and simulation) and
documentation (e.g. process flow chart analysis, fishbone and root
cause analysis). Evidence also supports the use of team-based
structures both for implementing the project and for designing the
new processes.
Techniques
One piece flow
• The implementation strategy for this company involved: completing a
line balance based on observed times and modifying work stations so
only one part can be stored between them. This frequently involved
major rearrangement when first attempted. The company decided to
use a ‘‘U’’ shaped layout with operators inside the configuration.
Standard work
• establishing the work sequence
• measuring the cycle time
• calculating the takt time
• comparing the cycle time against takt time.
Standard set-up
• a decentralized die and tool storage area was created
• To shorten set up time
• Allowed the operator visual access to the next set of dies and quality
fixtures needed
Kanban (“Sign Board” Produce what
needed)
• This company implemented Kanban.
• Starts in shipping when a shipment creates a need for parts that are
withdrawn from the manufacturing location. This creates a need at
the work center to produce more parts, which consumes
components. As containers of components are emptied, instructions
are sent to the area that produces that component and the consumed
components are replenished
Jidoka (“Autonomation” automation with a human
touch)

• to prevent the wrong components from being used

• to prevent defective parts from being used
• to stop parts from being loaded incorrectly
• use of flag signal, downtime sheet,
• ensuring that the state of production in the work center is visible.
• Investigate root cause and install countermeasure
Heijunka(product leveling)
• The implementation sequence
• for installing Heijunka included determining the required finished
good stores requirement in terms of both sales and floor space,
determining the withdrawal frequency based on takt time,
conveyance manner and walk time and finished producer container
size, designing/producing the appropriate Heijunka withdrawal tags
(unless shipping labels are being used), assuring that completed
product racking on the cell is designed to trigger a production Kanban
based on the Heijunka withdrawal, and training the Heijunka material
operator.
Lesson and Insights for implementation
LM
• Maximize value added
• Define what customer is willing to pay
• Use mapping for determination of improvement
• What people tell you ‘NORMAL’ is almost wrong
• Pulling the entire organization together on a common journey with a
common language with a more comprehensive approach is a key to
success.
5S
Cont.
• Training
 training of team leaders/supervisors first.
Make them experts in lean principles,
send them to seminars outside the facility,
Cont.
• Visual Control
As a communication device
standards can be identified by visual controls.

• Lean Progress Tracking

 track total product cycle time
Cont.
• Apply lean thinking
eliminate waste,
 explore new and better ways of doing work,
Be creative.
• Machine cell dedication
Arrange particular product in one area,
Cont.
• Find out what does not work and fix it.
• Find out what works well and standardize it.
• Only create new systems if needed.
• Applying best practices should be everyone’s responsibility
Conclusions

• At Case study Company(MSAC)

Parameters Before LM After LM

Manufacturing 30 days 16 days
batch sizes
Set-up times - Reduce by half
Five working Ten months Ten weeks
prototypes

• Management extremely happy at the success of LM

• committed to implement it throughout the organization.
Question & Answer