What is Lean?

Lean, in a nutshell is a team-based form of continuous improvement that focuses on identifying and eliminating "waste." Waste, in this case, is non-value added activity from the viewpoint of the customer. Lean can be considered as a way to add energy and vitality to your company in an increasingly competitive, unstable, and generally challenging environment.

Why Should You be Lean?

Organizations are constantly striving to improve their business in order to gain a competitive advantage. They consistently feel the stress to reduce costs, time and inventory. One way that has proven to improve an organization substantially is by implementing Lean Logistics in their handling, packaging, and storage systems.

Lean thinking is a way to recognize and eliminate wasteful activities from the supply chain in order to increase product flow and speed while ensuring a secure movement or handling. In order to achieve Leaner Logistics; organizations need to implement leaner thinking. Organizations that incorporate lean thinking into their supply chain can benefit from improved customer service, reduced cost of operations, and reduced environmental impact by reducing waste.

Lean Thinking involves a constant cycle of seeking perfection by eliminating waste and maximizing product value. This process means that end-customers don’t pay for organization inefficiency and waste. Four principles are involved in achieving minimal waste:

• Specify Value:

  Customer value is identified and added along the supply chain network.

• Map out value stream:

  Identifying all processes along the supply chain network in order to eliminate the processes that do not create value to the overall product. This mapping helps us understand how the value is created into the product from the customer’s perspective.

• Create a product flow:

  Applying the factors outlined in order to make valuable processes to occur in a smooth system; minimizing interruptions, inventories, downtime.

• Establish customer pull:

  Manufacturing only in response from the customer that more is needed; implying that demand information is made available across the supply chain.