The goal of lean manufacturing

This page is designed to help you find questions to some of the most common questions about lean manufacturing. The goal of lean manufacturing

The goal of lean manufacturing is "to eliminate the eight wastes of lean-overproduction, motion, inventory, waiting, transportation, defects, underutilized people, and extra processing. Lean targets non-value-added activities. These are the same activities that contribute to poor product quality" (Peterman, 2001, p. 24). In other words, lean manufacturing looks for those activities that do not add value and then eliminates those activities or processes. Anything referred to as non-valued added means it is an "activity that does not add market form or function or is not necessary" (Peterman, 2001, p. 24). Lean manufacturing is intended to eliminate, reduce, simplify or integrate non-value added activities.
Peterman reported that about 95 percent of a company's total lead time is filled with non-value added activities. These include waste in numerous areas including: machine setup, inspection, waiting, storage, transport, order processing, machine breakdown and so forth.

These activities often contribute to lower qualities. Examples include: damage during transportation, rework double handling; misidentification in storage; loss in storage; setup adjustments that results in a marginal product; breakdowns of machines instead of preventive maintenance; and inspection versus process capability. The worst waste of time, however, is usually a lack of communication or miscommunication between operators of different components during the process between beginning and the finished product (Peterman, 2001, p. 24).