What Does It Mean To Be Lean? 4 Benefits of Lean Manufacturing

A lean organization understands the necessity in providing seamless value to its customers, while using tools and methods to reduce waste. To become lean, your company should incorporate changes from the top down, to get better visibility and insight into your company’s operations, and automate your processes with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with manufacturing capabilities, such as Material Requirements Planning (MRP), and Shop Floor Control. By automating production, planning and quality control for example, companies can increase profits and lower costs.

If your organization is considering going lean, here are 4 business benefits that can be achieved from manufacturing automation:

1.Increased Management Productivity. Organizations that run their manufacturing business using manual processes will have higher production costs, compared to those who have manufacturing applications tied to an ERP system. With lean manufacturing principles in place, activities can be tracked and reassigned within minutes using manufacturing technology that automates business functions. Improving productivity and efficiency improves reliability and customer satisfaction because, in the end, your company’s bottom-line is going to be based on how productive it is. No matter what manufacturing industry your company is in, the less time that is misused equals more units that can be moved out the door. Productivity on the manufacturing floor depends on a combination of efficient employees, equipment, and processes.

2. Improved Customer Service. A company’s success is typically measured by its customer’s satisfaction. One of the first steps in adopting a lean manufacturing system is to create a customer-focused ideology within employees, which can be facilitated by using manufacturing technology to help improve customer service in key areas. Ultimately, all customers want to feel valued, and value is created when the quality of service received by the customer is high priority, keeping in mind your customers’ needs, and how you can address those needs better, faster, and cheaper. Lean manufactures use techniques to eliminate defects to increase continuous improvement, which will ultimately increase changes to eliminate waste.

3.Product Quality. A large component of lean manufacturing is focused on improving quality, which can be achieved by regulating quality control plans within the organization. Manufactures should always be on the lookout when it comes to ways their organizations can simplify manufacturing tasks throughout their operations. Inefficient and inconsistent product quality can lead to wasted time and resources. If an issue occurs in the manufacturing line, your company would greatly benefit by having a manufacturing automation in place to easily identify where the error accord and fix accordingly.

4.Standardizing Workflow. Many ERP systems have workflow capabilities, which can increase stability throughout the organization. The advantages of getting a better handle on your company’s workflow include speed and traceability. Organizing your manufacturing workflow can have a great influence on increasing efficiency because by improving your process flow your company can eliminate unproductive activity.

Lean automation will benefit a company because of reduced labor; however, additional benefits include: improved quality, accuracy, precision, and reduced energy and materials usage. With Lean manufacturing, companies can continuously improve workflow operations and enjoy a higher customer satisfaction rate. Achieving these benefits may seem daunting for manufacturers at first, but understanding technology can help shift the “lean” culture at any company.

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