OPERATIONS MANAGMENT

Lean and Agile Operations



Table of Contents

Introduction3

Lean Manufacturing3

Agile Manufacturing4

Comparison of Agile and Lean Systems5

Applicability of Lean Production6

Application to Service industry8

Agile & Lean EMS Providers10

Success Story of an EMS provider12

Conclusions13

References15

Lean and Agile Operations

Introduction

A lean organization predominantly increases the process efficiency through the elimination of waste and other defects, thereby building on a culture of continuous improvement. Agile projects within a lean organization provide a flexible ability to create and respond to change through delivery, customer value, collaboration and planning. Lean and agile together forms a package that creates flexibility, process efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Lean Manufacturing

There are several different definitions and perspectives, depending on the industry, the source, and how long the organization has been learning about Lean. A set of working tools and principles that can act on the chain value of the product/service or a family of products/services can define lean operations.

Lean manufacturing focuses mainly on the elimination of waste in all areas including production, product design & development, customer relations, supply chain network, and factory management. The principal objectives of lean operations are to incorporate minimal human effort, inventory, space and time to develop the end products. It also aims at being highly responsive to customer demand whilst producing quality products in the most efficient and economical manner. The simplest definition of lean manufacturing is the production with almost nonexistent or minimal waste. Lean manufacturing principles are revolves around the objective of reducing waste and excessive materials, inventory, labour and capital equipment. Supply chain management programs complement lean manufacturing as they move out the excess inventory. Consequently, lean manufacturing shortens the span of time between the placement of order and its delivery to the customer (Greene, 2006, p. 1-6).

Industries all over the fight to gain the market share while manufacturing at the lowest possible cost without compromising the quality of the product. Implementing lean manufacturing is one of the ways to reach this objective. In order to achieve the benefits of lean production, it is imperative that production lot sizes are greatly reduced. This can be done by engineering and minimizing the setup times. The fact is when setups are properly handled; a major impediment to production is removed. Therefore, reducing the setup times on the different machines would be one of the effective and easiest ways to introduce and implement the lean concept. Lean techniques are not restricted to production operations. They generally extend to receiving, inventory management and distribution. Inventory turnover and resources utilization are two of the most reliable tools to measure the effectiveness of lean manufacturing (Robinson, Sahin, 2007, p.5).

Agile Manufacturing

Agile manufacturing is categorised into two distinct aspects. First one was introduced by Nagel and Dove of the Iacocca Institute in 1992. It refers to the ability of an organisation to identify and respond to customer demands as a way to improve time to market. The second aspect involves the capability of an organisation to survive and flourish in a highly competitive and changing environment. Agile manufacturing facilitates in rapid changeover between the productions ...