Lean Manufacturing & JIT

- A philosophy for optimizing performance of a manufacturing system.

- Originated from work of Taiichi Ohno at Toyota.

- After WWII, U.S needed large mass production to satisfy demand for products.

- Japanese market was much smaller, so more flexible systems were needed to produce smaller quantities of different items in the same equipment.

After many years, Toyota established the following strategy:

1.Kanban based pull production.

2.Waste elimination is guide philosophy.

3.Faith in importance and value of quality.

4.“Kaizen” or continuous improvement as a daily strategy.

5.Emphasis on setup reduction on all machines.

6.Integrate suppliers and material acquisition into the planning process.

7.Cellular layouts with balanced flow.