Lean Production

Week 1: Introduction: Identification of Waste
Understand the basic differences between craft production and mass production. Review the history of Lean Production, focusing on Japan's Toyota Production System as an alternative to mass production. Discuss how waste impacts productivity and describe Taiichi Ohno’s famous 7 Wastes.

Week 2: Understanding Flow: Capacity Analysis
Cover the basics of process analysis, including understanding how to calculate process capacity and resource utilization, as well as the important concepts of cycle time and takt time. Understand the relationship between inventory, a waste, is directly related to the flow time in a system through Little’s Law. Understand how variability in a system causes queuing or waiting. even if there is enough capacity on average.

Week 3: Continuous Flow: Setup Time Reduction
Calculate the impact of setups on capacity when the product variety is increased and understand how batching can improve this, but at the expense of increased inventory. Review the Single Minute Exchange of Die (SMED), and learn why reducing setups and changeovers are critical to Lean manufacturing. Discuss the concept of Total Productive Maintenance and calculate the metric Overall Equipment Efficiency.

Week 4: Improving Flow: Workplace Organisation and Visualization
Introduction to the concepts of Workplace Visualization and Organization and 5S for improving and maintaining continuous flow in Lean Production.

Week 5: Maintaining Flow: Establishing Pull Systems and Scheduling
Define the key principle from the Toyota Production System, Just-In-Time (JIT)and the significance that JIT has for Lean Production in reducing waste and meeting customer demand. Review the relevant components of production planning and how these affect Production Scheduling, the heart of Lean Production. Understand, with the help of reduced setup time, how Mixed-Model Scheduling achieves a match between production and customer and how Pull systems can be realized using Kanbans.

Week 6: Quality and Continuous Improvement
Calculate the impact defects have on our flow rate. Understand how Poka Yokecan help fool-proof our processes and learn how to structure and run a Kaizen Blitzto bring about rapid improvement opportunities for problem-solving and process improvements. Consider the central role of Continuous Improvement in Lean Production by comparing the set of management principles, The Toyota Way 2001, and Jeffrey Liker’s 14 Management Principles.