68
NOV 2017
FOOD FOCUSTHAILAND
STORAGE, HANDLING &
LOGISTICS
Letme leaveaquestion for youhere if you reallyknowwhat lean
strategy isabout. If theanswer isno, I think it isanurgentmatter for
you to learn it. There are many institutes providing courses about
lean strategy, and I will summarize someof the ideabelow.
We’ll startwithaquestion, “WhyLean?” Inadirect interpretation,
“lean” means slim and fatless. The word “lean” is used in the term
“lean organization” or “leanenterprise” to explain that a company is
effective and active in its operation.
Afterweunderstandwhat “lean”means, thereare2otherwords
we need to understand, which are “value” and “waste”. Simply
speaking, eachorganization’sobjective is todeliver itsbest value in
a form of goods and services to customers and stakeholders.
However, in reality,manyactivitiesareusing resourcescarelessly
and do not create values for the customers. These activities are
considered a “loss” or “waste”, andmust be eliminated or reduced,
according to lean strategy, in order to ensure that every activity are
trulymeant to add value to theproducts and services.
Tosee thisclearer, letmegiveyousomeexamples.Leanstrategy
says that transporting/loading insidea factory isa loss, because it is
awork that aimsonly tochange thepositionof theproducts fromone
place to another. This adds no value to the product. Therefore,
the less there is for this kind of activities, the better it creates the
value.
An organization that is well regarded as the prototype of lean
organization isToyotaMotor.Oneof themain reasons is that Toyota
has grown continually in terms of sales and profit to become the
number one in automotive industry today.
Toyotahasset its3 targetvalues itaims todeliver to thecustomer;
highest quality, lowest cost, and shortest delivery.
In order to achieve its goal, Toyota sets up 7 wastes in the
production system and translate them to all of its employees. The
employeeswill thenseek for thewastes
and try to solve it. For anyof youwho
are interested in thisstory indetail can
findoutmorewith thekeyword “The
7Wastes”.
Toeliminate the7wastes,Toyota
designed itsownproductionsystem focusing
on 2 pillars; “quantitymanagement” and “qualitymanagement”.
In the7wastes,Toyotasaid that thebiggest loss in itsbusiness
was overproduction. In detail, overproductionmeans the excess
production of what the customers don’t really need, more than
what the customersneed, and faster than the time the customers
need the product. The customers here refer to both external and
internal (the next production stage) customers. The Just-In-Time
(JIT) production strategy derives from thismindset.
In termsofquality,eachof theproductionsystemmustengage
andbe responsible for thequalityof theproductmanufacturedby
its unit. No factory defect. If thedefect is found, theunitmust halt
thedelivery to thenext process immediately tosearch for the root
cause.
Theprincipleofquantitymanagementandqualitymanagement
highlight theparticipationofeveryemployee throughactivitycalled
“Kaizen”.TheorganizationalcultureofToyota teacheseveryworker
that they must not only repeatedly working, but also asking
questions to improve the outcome regularly.
In the food industry, there are some uniqueness such as the
limited shelf-life of raw materials and high maintenance costs.
However, this should be the advantage to apply lean strategy to
improve the production process.
For thoseof youwhoare looking for further information, aside
from taking classwithany institutions, I’d like to suggest 2books;
The Toyota Way, 14 Management Principles from the World’s
Greatest Manufacturer, and Lean Thinking, Banish Waste and
CreateWealth inYourCorporation.Bothbookshavealreadybeen
translated and areavailable inThai.
Lean
management is
a tool to
improve
productivity
and
aims to
eliminatewaste
inevery process and
dispose futileactivities
from the process.
