Lean Resistance
I find it fascinating that there are still companies that have not made any moves to adopt any lean manufacturing techniques. These companies have heard of 5-S and are willing to try doing the 5-S, but as far as embracing lean, the old methods are so deeply rooted that it is almost impossible to gain any traction toward an effective lean program.
The signs are there that implementing and utilizing lean techniques would be an opportunity to reduce costs. Renting warehouse space to store over production of product and parts that are not needed, excess amounts of some raw materials, but a lack of materials needed for current production, transporting material back and forth between the main plant and satellite warehousing locations, lack of space in the main plant to effectively move product through the plant, potential backorder reports that are several pages long, as well as missing ship dates and shipping orders short.
There are several reasons that are presented for not adopting lean. It will not work here, we are different. This is the way we have always done it. I do not understand how lean could possibly work. We spent a lot of money to get a good MRP system so we can forecast everything.
Lean is very intuitive and uncomplicated. It is common sense. For an example, let us assume your car is a factory and you are the manager of that factory. The product that you produce is miles driven. The raw material that is consumed to produce the miles is gasoline. Let us plan a trip from Minneapolis to Orlando. This is about 1,570 miles. If your car gets 20 miles per gallon, it will take 78.5 gallons of gasoline. Before you leave, the MRP system will tell you to go down to the local gas station and purchase 78.5 gallons of gas. What, you cannot do that? You do not have enough warehouse space in your factory to hold the inventory? Well, just swing by Walmart and buy some plastic gas cans so you can hold the inventory. Now you are set to make the trip! The trip to Orlando from Minneapolis is just like a long lead time order that can be forecast. It can be forecast accurately with a known amount of raw material needed.
As we start our trip we head through Iowa and decide to take a short detour to see the Pike’s Peak State Park. (Yes, there really is a Pike’s Peak State Park in Iowa) There is some road construction as you head through Missouri, and you must take a detour. When you are heading through St. Louis you stop to see Arch. In Kentucky you decide to take a quick side trip to see Mammoth Cave. When you get to Tennessee, a quick trip to Nashville sounds good. Each of these little side trips and detours is like a drop in order from a customer that is not forecast. Not to worry, you filled up all the plastic gas cans so you have plenty of raw material for the trip.
Wait a minute, you only bought enough gas to make the trip from Minneapolis to Orlando. You are going to run short on raw material and you will not make it to Orlando. That is how the traditional MRP system works.
How would this trip really go? You would leave Minneapolis with some gas in your tank. It may be full, it may be half full, it really does not matter. You do not have plastic gas cans filled to help you make the trip. Instead of having more gas, you have a gas gage. When the gas gage gets down to a certain level, you re-fill your gas tank. That sounds a lot like a Kan Ban. When you get to a certain inventory level you replenish your supply. By using the gas gage (Kan Ban) you can make the trip to Orlando (forecast) and complete all the side trips (drop in orders) without running out of gasoline (raw material) without plastic gas cans (additional warehouse).
