Lean and Flow Manufacturing
| What is it ? | How does it work ? |
| For whom ? | Benefits |  WHAT IS IT ?
A performance improvement technique that leads to manufacturing towards customer demand in a flexible, rapid and effective way.
A factory can be considered as a pipeline where the production lead time is defined by three elements of time : scheduling time, waiting time and work content time. Lean and Flow manufacturing focuses purely and simply on eliminating two of these three elements : the scheduling time and waiting time. The impact of this predictable model is an elimination of non-value added work and a reduction of working capital.
HOW DOES IT WORK ?
This method, based on mathematical algorithms, allows a synchronized and constant work (from the customer order towards raw material) adapting to real customer demand. The classic way of production by work orders based on large lot sizes for sub-assemblies and kitting of material disappears. Work orders for sub-assemblies will loose all significance because a flow line is organized through a main line consuming the different sub-assemblies directly as feeders. FOR WHOM ?
The Lean and Flow Manufacturing is applicable to any kind of production environment, in spite of : • complexity of products and process,
• volumes produced,
• or number of models. THE BENEFITS OF LEAN AND FLOW MANUFACTURING :
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