7207ENG - Lean Production: Waste Reduction and Efficiency Review

This report provides an overview of lean production, a systematic approach to minimizing waste in manufacturing systems while maintaining efficiency. Originating from the Japanese manufacturing industry, lean production utilizes tools to eliminate waste, improve quality, and reduce costs and production time. The literature review defines lean production, outlines its benefits such as reduced manpower and expenses, and identifies barriers to implementation, including resistance to change and initial costs. The research methods included interviews, surveys, and reviews of publications. Data collection highlights the Toyota Production System as a successful implementation of lean principles. The report concludes by recommending employee education and training before implementing lean production to ensure understanding and success. Desklib provides access to similar solved assignments and study resources for students.

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LEAN PRODUCTION
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Keywords
Lean, lean production, waste reduction, and lean manufacturing
1. RESEARCH CONTEXT
1.1 Overview
The principles of lean production are derived from a manufacturing industry in Japan. Lean can
be defined as a set of tools that help in the allocation and fixed removal of waste from a
production system. As waste is removed from a system, there is an improvement of quality while
the cost and production time are reduced.
1.2 Introduction
A lean production is a systematic approach for the reduction of waste within a system of
manufacturing without scarifying the efficiency of the system. This production also takes into
consideration the waste produced through unevenness in workloads and waste produced through
the overburden.
2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW
Lean production can be defined as a systematic approach for the minimization of waste within a
manufacturing system without scarifying the productivity of the system. The lean production
may be observed as a sloppily related set of possibly contending principles whose objective is
the decrease of cost through the removal of waste. The principles include visual control,
production flow, autonomation, maintaining and building a long-term relationship with supplier
flexibility, waste minimization, perfect first-time quality, and pull processing. The

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implementation of lean production emphasizes the significance of workflow optimization
through procedures of strategic operations while reducing waste and adaptation (Black, 2011).
2.2 Benefits of Lean Production
Lean production focuses on the elimination of the unnecessary manpower, workspaces,
expenses, stocks, and activities so as to reduce the cost and increase the efficiency of production.
The customers can also benefit from the improved support processes and customer service and
from the optimized supply of products since the lean production focuses of maintaining the
balance between the demand and supply (Elbert, 2012).
2.3 Barriers of Lean Production
The major barrier towards the implementation of the lean production in an organization is the
resistance of the people to change. People tend to view such changes as unnecessary and evil and
would prefer to live in their comfort zone especially the long-term employees who would wish to
retain the way thing are being done. Another barrier is the cost which will be spent during
proofing processes and also redesigning the equipment to enable lean production (Wang, 2010).
RESEARCH METHODS
This research methods adopted in this research on lean production include interviews with the
organizations that have implemented the lean production, surveys, and also reviewing the
publication from different sources which may include the articles published by organization
regarding lean production (Dennis, 2009).

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3.0 DATA COLLECTION
The lean production management philosophy has been successfully implemented in the Toyota
Production System since the system focuses on the minimization of the initial Toyota seven
waste to promote the entire value of the customer. The view of Toyota is that the major approach
of lean is not the equipment, but the minimization of the three categories of wastes which include
the unevenness, overburden, and non-value-adding, to use the equipment where the idea cannot
be attained, and to expose systematically the problems (Dennis, 2009).
3.0 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
A lean production is a systematic approach for the reduction of waste within a system of
manufacturing without scarifying the productivity of the system. As waste is removed from a
system, there is an improvement of quality while the cost and production time are reduced.
Before the implementation of the lean production to an organization, it is recommended that the
business first educate the employees and then train them so that they understand the importance
of lean production to the system.

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4.0 Bibliography
Black, J., 2011. Lean Production: Implementing a World-class System. New York: Industrial Press Inc.
Dennis, P., 2009. Lean Production Simplified, Second Edition: A Plain-Language Guide to the World's
Most Powerful Production System. Michigan: CRC Press.
Elbert, M., 2012. Lean Production for the Small Company. Perth: CRC Press.
Wang, J., 2010. Lean Manufacturing: Business Bottom-Line Based. London: CRC Press.