Lean manufacturing arose in the Japanese manufacturing industry after World War II, as Japan was trying to rebuild. At its heart, lean manufacturing or lean is very simple. Lean is focused on eliminating waste from the manufacturing process. Waste is defined as something that from the customer perspective adds no value to the process. A customer will never be happy paying for anything that does not add value to what they actually want.

Lean manufacturing is applied in a systematic way in order to minimize waste within a manufacturing system. This reduction of waste cannot come at the expense of quality, safety, or productivity. It is not an improvement if we manage to speed up a process so much that it introduces more defects into the final product.

There are many approaches to lean manufacturing, and we will discuss some specifics such as kaizen. There are differences in the varied approaches to lean manufacturing, but they share the same goal. This allows a company to tailor the approach to their goals and to the products they make. One company may focus on improving process flow, and another company may be more focused on Quality of Final product. However, they are both interested creating improvements that add value to the customer.

Successful implementation of lean requires that lean concepts have to be acknowledged by employees who develop the products and initiate the processes that deliver value. The cultural and managerial aspects of lean are arguably more important than the actual tools or methodologies of production itself.

Lean aims to enhance productivity by simplifying the operational structure enough to be able to understand, perform in, and manage the work environment. Employees need to be empowered to make suggestions and management has to be receptive to these suggestions. In order to be empowered you need to have the mindset to think lean. Thinking lean begins by learning what waste is.

Learning Objectives:

- 3.1 - Describe the different types of waste as they relate to the manufacturing process.