How does lean manufacturing fit in with shop floor control software and reaching the goal of increased factory efficiency?  We hear this question quite often from our customers and prospects.  They wonder how to blend the principles of lean manufacturing with factory efficiency metrics.

The 5 steps of lean manufacturing first published in 1991 and yet still applicable today, include: 1) identify value, 2) map the value stream, 3) create flow, 4) establish pull, and 5) seek perfection.  These steps when implemented successfully with the right shop floor control software lead to the elimination of waste with huge improvements in efficiency, productivity, reduction of raw materials with less resources leading to increased ability to compete and win new business in your industry.

PROTIP: The biggest takeaway to remember is that you must have a real-time digital methodology that allows for change and process improvement: you need a way to measure, document and report on the real time results happening on your factory floor.

Identify Value - “What is the Customer Willing to Pay?”

You will need to define what the customer is willing to pay for using qualitative and quantitative techniques. By adding real-time results from your shop floor control software solution, you will quickly calculate an accurate labor cost. If you use a shop floor control software with an integrated raw materials inventory control solution you will have precise bill of materials (BOM) cost too.  Armed with this information, you can more confidently price your solution and yet remain competitive thus improving bottom line margins.

Map the Value Stream

You will need a way to map the value stream and then identify and report on-standard vs off-standard activities.  Using shop floor control software to do this in real-time is what allows you to take immediate action on reducing/eliminating the non-value added off standard activities and increase your factory efficiency.

 “The first rule of any technology used in a business is that automation applied to an efficient operation will magnify the efficiency. The second is that automation applied to an inefficient operation will magnify the inefficiency.” — Bill Gates

Create Flow - Eliminate Silo Thinking

By implementing shop floor control software that allows you to capture the results of cross-functional and multi-skilled training with pacing, you can report in real-time and answer questions like: 1) who has been trained on which operations and 2) who are my most efficient operators on which operations? This process lets you understand training opportunities both for operators that need more skills, but also why certain operators are more efficient and how can that expertise be shared across the factory floor. You can eliminate siloed operations where only one operator can perform a certain operation.

 Establish Pull - Understand Capacity

Pull simply means that you are responding to customer demands as quickly as possible without creating excess inventory.  Inventory is often one of the biggest wastes on the factory floor.  A real-time shop floor control software solution can help you more accurately plan your work in progress (WIP) by giving you a better understanding of your plant capacity and efficiency.  Pull systems optimize raw materials and make you more aware of your capacity so you can start new work only when there is a customer demand for it. This process gives you the opportunity to reduce overhead and storage costs.

Seek Perfection

The final step in lean: seeking perfection.  You will want to make lean thinking and process improvement a part of your corporate culture. As gains continue to pile up, it is important to remember that lean is not a static system and requires constant effort and vigilance to perfect. This intersection is where lean and shop floor control software really shines. Every employee should be involved in implementing lean. Lean experts often say that a process is not truly lean until it has been through value-stream mapping at least half a dozen times.  But in order to make that truly possible, you must implement lean principles with an effective shop floor control software solution.

Using lean principles with shop floor control software means you are changing the focus of management from optimizing separate technologies, assets, and vertical departments to optimize the flow of products and services through entire value streams that flow horizontally across technologies, assets, and departments to customers. Simply put, lean means creating more value for customers with fewer resources leading to increased profits.  An improved bottom-line is exactly what you get by intersecting lean principles with shop floor control software.

1 “The Machine That Changed the World (1991)” by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Ross and Daniel Roos.