The Lean ideology is often reported to be opposed towards the embracing of IT.
Lean proponents, by definition, are technical sceptics (Womack and Jones2005). It is ironic that on the surface, Lean inherently involves a considerable time spent on the creation of processes requiring as little information as possible, whilst the rest of us try tofigure out how to get more and more information. The Lean community, it needs to be stressed, is not and should never be against IT but equally must not be obliged to sprint towards automated solutions; through experience, this tends to institutionalise large amounts of waste. It is vitally important that organisations primarily refine:
• procedures,
• motions, and
• techniques.
Many ERP softwarefirms are attempting to find ways of making their software responsive to Lean; i.e.,“American Software”, “SAP AG”, “Oracle”, “Peoplesoft Inc”. Attitudes towards IT by Lean proponents are changing. IT solutions should be eradicated if they are financially focused rather than customer focused and not intended to eliminate waste and simplify and streamline operations. In practice, the real issue has often been on how the IT solution is used, not the IT solution itself.
Ultimately, IT solutions should be viewed as enablers that sustain change, facilitate the rapid adoption of more complex Lean techniques such as line design and load-levelling production, and help to capture the value delivered.
Process simulation regularly plays an important enabling role in Lean pro-gramme delivery. Basic Lean tools, including value stream mapping, arefine for analysing simple, linear processes with relatively consistent demand patterns. Static approaches are less appropriate for analysing processes which incorporate volatile demand dynamics, product mix complexity, or the shared use of specialist resources (machines or labour). Where such time dependencies are important, a process simulation model can more accurately describe and visually explain the dynamics of the process, its performance, and resource requirements and show what the main drivers for end-to-end process performance are.
Fundamentally, Lean aims to ensure that resources are matched to demand, and process simulation is a tool that frequently used to do precisely this, whether it is for a call centre, a factory, or a police custody suite. The objective of most process simulation tools is to enable decisions on how best to match available resources with customer demand. Process simulation can be very effective in establishing
“current state” understanding and in considering various “future state” options. In each new environment that Lean has entered—such as the service environment (including banking and insurance), health care, construction, public sector, or retail, we have seen examples of implementations that have followed a similar path.
However, what we now know is that applying Lean is situational as it depends upon the circumstances we are operating in and the business problem(s). The agile
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movement was already prevalent in the IT sector, and some folks were trying to adopt Lean methods inside this approach. However, what really interested me were three further strands that have emerged. Firstly, the Lean Start-up movement was very much in evidence drawing on the prevailing evidence whereby in many ways this gets to the heart of what Lean is all about, solving problems for customers.
Secondly, the work is that Toyota is doing to translate Lean principles and use the Toyota Way in IT. Thirdly, work is happening whereby companies are embedding Lean principles into project management using visual management and PDCA.
This last area is applicable beyond the IT arena.
Future state process visualisation using value stream mapping is very limited, and this can be more powerfully and visually enabled using process simulation.
Usually, the key question in testing future state process designs is“how well will the new process design work?” This is where process simulation can add real value as it allows all stakeholders to evaluate the impact of making a wide variety of“what if”
change scenarios quickly and without the cost and risk of implementation or pilot implementation.
Another area where simulation can contribute strongly within a Lean initiative is when organisations are trying to unlock new process design thinking from legacy resources. Such employees can more readily engage with a very visual process simulation model and this helps unblock improvement ideas. The very creation of a process simulation model forces teams to ask the right process and performance questions. Often, these are questions that are being asked for thefirst time. Once built, a process simulation model can then be used to help stress-test the viability of solutions suggested by kaizen style improvement teams in a risk free environment.
This encourages more radical redesign thinking and helps management identify implementation priorities. As an integral part of a Lean activity, companies spend a lot of time designing new process layouts, producing CAD drawings, and pro-ducing process maps en route. The cost of such activities can easily run into six figures, yet none of these outputs will actually determine whether the new process will work or not! This is the job of process simulation which can test the capability of the new design and provide essential implementation confidence to management that they have selected the right solution.
Lean cannot afford not to embrace technology; it may permit a much more complex or advanced manufacturing process to occur. The development of new bar coding capabilities, new RFID technologies, and mobile devices brings new tools to the toolbox for potential use. Toyota offers a common-sense approach that has defined the company from the start. In its advanced North American facilities, this approach has culminated in a harmonious combination of robotics, e-kanbans and automated business processes all working in harmony with the TPS. As technology is edging further into the production cycle and takes on more critical tasks, the line between technology and Lean is becoming blurred. In essence, we should imple-ment technology when it is appropriate to do so to aid in the use of the Toyota Production System. One of the obvious but often overlooked tools is information from an electronicfloor system. A floor information system can help manufacturers move forward with Lean concepts of identifying problems, following theflow of
parts, and measuring changeover times. With information systems, factory floor processes and partflow, sometimes referred to as a “current state map”, are visibly tracked through production. The processflow is visible and available all day to all employees. Improvement becomes a continuous, ongoing goal for both manage-ment and floor workers. To truly contribute to Lean manufacturing, floor infor-mation systems should provide the following:
• Accessibility: all floor employees have access to the system and are empowered to identify problem situations.
• A JIT approach: a just-in-time production approach is dynamic and reactive to customer andfloor demands.
• Tracking: changeover times can be tracked to specific assets and employees.
• Process improvement: opportunities for process improvement are identified and recorded.
• Communication: floor personnel have access to communications such as e-mail when appropriate.
• Data: operators can access data through electronic, paperless display of elec-tronic image and video documents.
• Quality checks: quality checks are captured electronically in real time so that employees can be alerted to non-conformance conditions.
As much as Lean initiatives have developed through processes and organisa-tional structure, Lean-enabling technology has also evolved. In recent years, manufacturers have become more sophisticated with their Lean-enabling technol-ogy implementation, moving beyond electronic kanban (using an electronic signal to notify plant employees when other departments need materials). For instance, they are integrating modelling and simulation into their applications and using value stream mapping to document the production process and value-added activities. Recent evidence suggests that these measures, along with supermarket sizing (“inventory levels planned based on uncertainty of demand and attainments”) and order management integration (“visibility into manufacturing constraints when order promising”), are amongst the “Lean automation” tools being used by man-ufacturing firms today. Moreover, 63 % of top-performing manufacturers (top 20 %) have enabled Lean manufacturing practices through demand planning and forecasting systems. Best-in-class manufacturers are using such solutions to determine forward-looking inventory targets by customer, location, and so forth, for production planning and scheduling. The best-in-class manufacturers cited manu-facturing execution systems (MES) and advanced planning and scheduling (APS) as rounding out the top three Lean-enabling technologies, all of which are more likely to be used in tandem with the Lean tools discussed above. The MES allow manufacturers to more efficiently track and trace production across the organisation, optimise production schedules that have real constraints, and improve quality from both a process and finished product perspective. APS results in the creation of production plans at different levels of granularity (from monthly to near real time) using a variety of approaches, such as theory of constraints and takt time sched-uling. A critical caveat for manufacturers who decide to leverage technology in a
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Lean environment is that it should be reliable and thoroughly tested to serve the organisation’s processes and people, according to the Toyota Way; that is, the technology should be pulled by manufacturing rather than pushed to manufacturing.