Now that you have the experience of making products, you can begin thinking about improving the manufacturing process. Improvement means making the process more efficient without sacrificing safety or quality of the final product. We make the process more efficient by removing waste from the manufacturing process. The focus on reduction of waste in manufacturing is called lean manufacturing. This discussion will be about lean manufacturing as a concept, we will discuss what waste is, how we identify it, and how we eliminate it. The ultimate purpose is to have you be thinking about waste in the manufacturing environment and to feel empowered to make suggestions for improvement.

In this module you’ll learn about

- Lean manufacturing,
- What waste is in manufacturing and how to identify it, and
- Elimination of waste from manufacturing processes