Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Top 7 Lean Manufacturing training tips

Lean Manufacturing is implemented in thousands of corporations today. Although the discipline has existed for over two decades, only the largest companies have a long-term use of these tools.

1. Find a good training course. There are hundreds of courses lean manufacturing, ranging from consultants to universities. It is essential to learn from someone who has experience in the real world application of lean manufacturing principles.

2. Choose your experts and train, train, train. After finding a good course or two and learning of the basic principles of lean manufacturing, to allow a few individuals to become experts.

3. To train a critical mass of employees. Implementing lean manufacturing requires a large percentage of employees working together to find waste, and non-value activities.

4. Learning is done by applying the principles of lean. Learn as much as possible about a concept, then begin to implement it. A good example is 5S. 5S When properly applied, it not only provides improved policing and cleaning, it also increases the equipment and improves efficiency.

5. Hire an expert. It is difficult to go to training courses for the successful implementation. An expert saw the pitfalls of the implementation of practices failed. They will be able to continue to train and guide the team through the roadmap on the road to a state of lean.

6. Visit other successful implementations lean. It is easy to find companies that will let you see their meagre application. The difficult part is to find a successful implementation. A good way to do this is to find a company hiring professionals lean manufacturing. If the application has not been successful, they would not hire more professionals.

7. Do not give up. There will be failures in implementing a lean. These are just the battles along the road to winning the war on waste.