I was at Industry Week’s annual conference last week and had the pleasure to listen to one of Toyota’s VP of Information Systems, Tim Platt, talk about "Lean's High Tech Makeover". Mr. Platt shared how Toyota is leveraging information technology in their current Lean Manufacturing efforts to gain more efficiencies. He showed examples of how information technology is supporting the Lean principles of Jidoka, just-in-time and standardization.
Three case studies were presented for US plants totaling around $3.5M per year in hard savings from implementing information systems to achieve the Lean principles.
The following are some examples of how information technology is helping achieve new levels of
performance with these Lean principles:
Jidoka Lean principles include the ability to stop a process when an issue is found and
immediately alert the supervisor and support personnel that can assist in solving the problem. Old school Andon boards are replaced by visual dashboards that provide the same visibility within the work center but also provide visibility from any computer in the plant to any work center Andon board. Old school Andon lights used to indicate that the line was stopped are replaced by event triggered alerts that are broadcasted via email to the respective support department to assist in clearing the issue as soon as possible.
Standardization principles are enforced via a manufacturing execution system (MES) that provides
work instructions to encourage process repeatability and reduction of variance.
Pokayoke tooling and mechanical methods are complemented with sequence and data collection
enforcement by an MES to make sure the correct process is followed every time.
Just-in-time principles can be applied with system generated Kanban triggers. Heijunka type work
leveling to achieve smooth flow can be assisted by the use of special scheduling software that
incorporates Lean principles and similar principles like drum-buffer-rope.
It was very refreshing to hear a Toyota executive talking about leveraging information systems
to implement Lean principles after years of hearing old school Lean practitioners taking the
hard line against information technology.
Some of us have talked for years about the information flow being a critical part of the value
chain that requires waste reduction to achieve a Lean Information Value Chain.
The examples from Toyota, one of the companies that taught us Lean Thinking, continue to
reinforce that information technology and Lean Manufacturing are not mutually exclusive. Another source for examples leveraging information technology to achieve Lean is MESA’s “Lean
Manufacturing Strategic Guidebook”; a resource available to MESA premium members at mesa.org.
References:
“Toyota’s Lean High-Tech Makeover”, a presentation by Tim Platt, VP Information Systems, Toyota US, May 2014
“Lean Manufacturing Strategic Guidebook”, MESA International, 2010
informative
Posted by: maryjane | May 10, 2017 at 05:51 AM