Streamlining waste

VSM helps cut cycle times while improving quality and inventory control

By Zeynep Ocak

In today’s world, production methods are being changed as the way of management thinking changes. Lean manufacturing methods are being adopted by many major businesses in order to remain competitive in the global market. The focus of the approach is on cost reduction and enhanced product quality by eliminating waste in the process. Waste is defined as any action that does not add value to the product from the customer point of view. To this extent, lean methods provide a set of principles and techniques that drive organizations to add value continually to the product they deliver by improving process steps that are valuable while eliminating those that fail to add value. Taiichi Ohno’s Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-Scale Production categorizes waste by seven titles: overproduction, inventory, defect, waiting, transportation, over-processing and motion wastes.