Although much has been written about just-in-time (JIT) delivery and lean manufacturing, there seems to be some confusion about what they are and how to make them work.
Lean manufacturing is a philosophy of manufacturing that focuses on delivering the highest quality product at the lowest cost on time. It is a system of production and also takes a value stream focus. The “value stream” consists of all the steps in the process needed to convert raw material into the product the customer desires. Any steps in the process that fail to do this are considered wasteful. By necessity, when the value stream passes between customers and suppliers that are located at a geographical distance, there is waste —product cannot simply flow from value-added process to value-added process. The goal of lean supply-chain management, then, is to minimize this waste so product can flow as efficiently as possible. A key part of lean manufacturing is JIT delivery — getting the right part to the right place at the right... To read the complete article, login or sign-up using the form below.
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