Background of Lean Manufacturing
Lean is a philosophy that spurred from the Toyota Production System (TPS). TPS was created by Toyota’s founder Sakichi Toyodo, Kiichiro Toyoda, and Taiichi Ohno. Much of TPS was also influenced by W. Edwards Deming’s statistic process control (SPC) and Henry Ford’s mass production lines. However, the Japanese were not impressed with Ford’s approach because it was filled with over-production, lots of inventory, and much waiting. Toyota identified these weaknesses in Ford’s production line and adapted the production line to create a more productive and reliable production line. TPS and lean also use just-in-time inventory where only small amounts of inventory were ordered and very little inventory was left waiting in the production line. This also was very different from Ford’s production line which usually bought high volumes of materials and had high inventory levels to lower costs. After TPS proved to be successful for Toyota, many companies adapted their Continue reading