What is lean manufacturing?

Lean manufacturing (lean production) is a series of processes that aim to minimise waste within manufacturing systems while improving efficiency and profitability. It originated in Japan as 無駄 (muda), which means futility, uselessness, and wastefulness.

Waste in manufacturing can stunt growth, cost money, and reduce efficiency. It takes many forms, including unused materials that cannot be recycled or repurposed, workers who do not reach their full potential, neglected resources, and flawed work practices. Eliminating and reducing these is the idea behind lean manufacturing.

The Toyota Production System first promoted lean manufacturing in the 1990s. Adopting this helped Toyota grow from a small company to one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers. Eight kinds of muda are addressed.

• • Waste of overproduction
• • Waste of time on hand
• • Waste of transportation
• • Waste of processing itself
• • Waste of stock at hand
• • Waste of movement
• • Waste of making defective products
• • Waste of underutilised workers

Here at Sheet Metal Services, we consider ourselves lean manufacturers because we reuse and recycle whatever we can and deploy various methods to ensure our factory is always running as efficiently as possible. This allows us to deliver the highest quality to our customers in short lead times at competitive prices.

Are you looking for sheet metal fabrication or finishing services? Get in touch with our team at [email protected] or 0151 949 0889