FUTURE TECHNOLOGY
• Improved design and delivery data through web-portal collaboration with customers and suppliers
• Reduced data input and errors through sharing common data from design to manufacture , installation and service
• Increased business capacity through synchronising delivery milestones with current work tasks
• Reduced customer delivery cycle times through parallel planning and concurrent activities
• Improved customer delivery dates from common data and integrated design , build and install solution
• Improved customer satisfaction from better quality , lower prices and ontime delivery
• Improved quality and design by analysing failures .
When adopting the concepts of a lean enterprise , a systematic approach is needed . An organisation needs to develop a strategy for deploying these concepts and there are a range of systems and technologies to guide them through this process .
Adopting lean principles enables a company to remain competitive and improve its position in the market . In a region that is becoming more brand dominated it will be the most effective for enterprises that aim to dominate the market and own the leading brands within the region .
Less well run organisations that do not have efficient and effective processes will have to reduce assets to survive , resulting in brands being traded as a means of survival .
There are five basic principles to adopting lean principles :
1 Value
Lean thinking demands that anything that does not add value to a customer must be eliminated . It is vital to understand that , only what your customers perceive as value is important . This often requires a complete review of each step in the customer buying process to create for them a hassle-free buying and service experience .
If customers believe that short order lead time from their suppliers is the differentiating factor in the market , within given standards of quality and functionality , then those who can respond the fastest will dominate . Price may become a secondary issue , so premium pricing may apply to those who deliver in the shortest time .
2
Value Stream
Once an enterprise understands the value that it delivers to its customers , there is a need to analyse all the steps in their business processes to determine which ones actually add value . It would need to review those processes that add value to see how these can be improved to provide better customer value .
3 Flow
This relates to the uninterrupted movement of physical objects and data within the enterprise . In a complex engineer – to-order company , this will mean that information from design will flow into engineering and into estimating and into projects and then to procurement . In a complex contract this will mean that as sections are completed in one department , they are made available to others , rather than a single department spending weeks completing the contract before any information is made available .
Flow challenges the tradition of processing in batches and moving these batches from one department to another or from one machine to the next . This requires the removal of physical barriers and co-operation across functions . The goal is to reduce the time it takes to complete an end-to-end process .
4 Pull
Rather than working from a forecast of potential customer demands , referred to as push system , the goal in Lean is to perform a process by linking it directly to a real customer demand , referred to as pull system . Often in engineer – to-order organisations , there are broken links between when the customer requires part of the delivery to when the delivery is available .
5 Perfection
As you continually eliminate waste from your processes and flow information , product or services , you will realise that there are always changes that can be made in the goal of perfection . The continual re-evaluation of the entire value stream is essential to remove noncustomer value adding activities .
These five lean principles need to all work together and are fundamental to the elimination of wasted time , money and product . Companies working in the steel and manufacturing sectors need to revisit each of them as improvements in one area provide opportunities for improvements in another .
The process of developing a Lean enterprise never ends . Lean is not a destination but a journey . There is always something else that you can do to reduce waste or improve upon a process .
Luis Ortega is Managing Director of IFS Middle East , Africa and South Asia
40 Issue 01 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS