Manufacturing Software Drives Lean Manufacturing
In your environment, you know that lean manufacturing gives you the competitive advantage to dominate your market. As a result, you know the value of manufacturing software that will drive your lean practices. Manufacturing software designed to drive lean manufacturing help to reduce your overall costs, improve your quality and help to produce a healthy bottom line.
When selecting the right manufacturing software to establish lean manufacturing within your environment¸ you must look for a manufacturing system that is designed to eliminate waste in every production area. Be sure the solution you consider will address customer relations, supplier networks, factory management and product design. Each of these areas is key to the overall process and a bogged down or manual approach in any one of these areas can quickly take you away from lean manufacturing and give your competition a leg up.
The goal of any lean manufacturing software is to incorporate as much automation into processes as possible, while reducing human effort. Overall, the aim is also to maintain less inventory, reduce your product development time and use less space. At the same time, you want to be highly responsive to the demands of customers. Can you do all of this while also producing the best quality products in the industry? If the answer is no, then it may be time to upgrade your manufacturing software to a solution that allows you to do this efficiently and economically.
Principles in lean manufacturing have been designed to respond to the highly competitive market in which you operate today. While the roots of lean manufacturing run deep and are based on lessons learned over time; solutions today are influenced strongly by key productions processes developed by a car manufacturer – Toyota. This company perfected the process of producing end products as efficiently as possible, while also enjoying a healthy profit margin. A focus on efficiency and quality assured market dominance, and inspired manufacturing companies throughout the world.
When implementing lean manufacturing solutions, there are certain results you should expect. Establish these expectations before you determine what solution provider to work with as it sets a standard by which you expect them to perform. Here is a working list from which you can develop your own expectations:
- Delivery Lead Times – expect a reduction of more than 75 percent.
- Product Defects – expect a reduction of up to 20 percent overall.
- Inventory – expect working capital reductions of more than 75 percent.
- On Time Delivery – expect improvements of more than 99 percent.
- Productivity – expect your sales per employee to increase 15 to 35 percent year over year.
- Return on Assets – expect improvements of more than 100 percent.
If you establish this list based on your current production numbers and then present it to upper management along with your lean manufacturing software recommendation, you are sure to get executive level buy-in. As moving to a lean manufacturing environment will require a cultural change, you must manage the process from the top-down. Without executive level support, you will have more difficulty changing the approach from the employee level. Once employees understand the benefits of lean manufacturing and how software implementations can help make it a reality, they are more likely to jump on board.
