Problem:
John and Tripp at HMC know that the workforce, including both hourly and salaried employees, need to be brought up to speed on the concepts of lean production for the upcoming production changes to be successful. They want to start having plant meetings as soon as possible. For this to happen, the CEO John Michael, has asked you to prepare a presentation explaining the types of waste that a lean production system seeks to eliminate.
For this assignment, you must submit a presentation consisting of 10-12 PowerPoint slides (not including title and reference slides) with at least 50-100 words of speaker's notes per slide in which you explain the types of waste that a lean production system seeks to eliminate. For full-credit, you must address the following in your presentation:
- Explain what a lean production system is.
- Explain how a lean production system functions.
- Explain the types of waste that a lean production system seeks to eliminate.
- Explain how a company would go about eliminating certain waste.
- Provide at least 2 examples of companies that have used a lean production system to eliminate waste.
- Provide at least 2 examples of waste companies are trying to get rid of.
- Explain how a lean production system would be implemented at HMC.
Tips and Tricks:
You should identify and describe the types of waste that a lean production system seeks to eliminate. There are seven categories or types of muds or waste (Ohno, 1998):
- Overproduction means to manufacture an item before it is actually required.
- Waiting is used to describe the time when goods are not moving or being processed.
- Transporting product between processes is a cost that adds no value.
- Inappropriate processing is using expensive high precision equipment where simpler tools would suffice.
- Unnecessary inventory or work-in-progress (WIP) is a direct result of overproduction and waiting.
- Unnecessary and/or excess motion can include bending, stretching, walking, lifting, and reaching.
- Defects result in rework or scrap.