LEAN

CFN People have practical experience in Lean and some of us have been working in companies, which had adopted and adapted the Lean practices.

Lean is a systematic, continuous improvement approach which focuses activities on reducing waste while aligning them to an overall growth strategy. Leaders of a Lean organization are dedicated to developing Lean thinkers and a continuous improvement culture. A Lean Enterprise essentially eliminates waste throughout the business. Waste costs you resources, but adds no value to the customers you serve.

Lean will help you increase profits while:

Reducing cycle time
Reducing inventory and work-in-process
Reducing costs
Increasing capacity
Increasing productivity while improving quality
Increasing sales

Lean is the term used to describe the production system developed by the Toyota company in the post World War II years. "Lean" comes from the ability to achieve more with less resource, by the continuous elimination of waste.

The concept of Lean is not restricted to manufacturing and applies to the whole enterprise, including the supply chain, the new product development process and the provision of service.

In the book, 'Lean Thinking', five Lean Principles are defined:

Specify what creates value from the customer's perspective
Identify all the steps across the whole value stream
Make those actions which create value flow
Only make what is pulled by the customer just-in-time
Strive for perfection by continually removing successive layers of waste.