What Is Lean Manufacturing?
Lean principles help manufacturers achieve unprecedented efficiencies and performance improvement - on the shop floor, in internal business processes and throughout the value chain.
The focus of Lean Manufacturing is the absolute elimination of waste. Waste is anything that prevents the value-added flow of material from raw material to finished goods.

There are many tools available to help support the ideal of continuous flow and building just what the customer wants when they want it, i.e. pull. The tools include quick changeover methods, mistake proofing, workplace organization, standardization, and total productive maintenance, but these are just tools. The overarching goal is to create a value-added flow in order to give customers what they want precisely when they want it.

Why Lean Manufacturing Is Essential?

Disciplined application of Lean techniques is the key to extended enterprise integration. Benefits include:

   - Increased Revenues

   - Increased Customer Satisfaction

   - Reduced Waste

   - Increased Profits

   - Accelerated Cash Flow

Lean Manufacturing White Paper (pdf download)

   - Framework for a Lean Manufacturing Planning System

Learn More About Lean Manufacturing

   - www.crms.uky.edu

   - www.mit.edu/manuf-sys/www/amb.summary.html

   - www.superfactory.com

   - web.mit_edu/lean/index.html

   - www.lean.org

   - www.umich.edu/~umjtmp/

Recommended Reading

   - Lean Thinking : Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation,

     by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones

   - Learning to See by Mike Rother and John Shook

   - Becoming Lean: Inside Stories of U.S. Manufacturers by Jeffrey K. Liker (Editor)