Written By: Ryder Supply Chain Solutions
Given the challenges of moving products from Point A to Point B in an increasingly complex marketplace, implementing a lean culture is the key to delivering long-term customer value and outstanding business performance, quarter-after-quarter, year-after-year. Lean practices improve quality and productivity by extracting cost and waste from all facets of an operation – from the procurement of raw materials to the shipment of finished goods.
When it comes to optimizing a supply chain, we’ve found that for many of our customers the key to success is found through implementing a lean culture. In a lean work environment, every step in every process must add value for the end customer – or be eliminated.
Lean Methodologies
The roots of lean thinking harken back to Henry Ford’s manufacturing innovations in the early 20th century. However, lean manufacturing really had its start after World War II at the Toyota Motor Company.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) aimed to eliminate seven types of muda, or waste. The seven types of muda include:
- Overproduction (manufacturing items before they’re required)
- Waiting (goods remain in stasis before they’re ready for the next process)
- Excess movement when transporting goods from one process to the next
- Inappropriate processing
- Unnecessary inventory
- Excess motion (that can compromise workers’ health and safety)
- Defects that result in rework or scrap.
A lean culture is the key to eliminating waste and delivering long-term customer value and outstanding business performance, quarter-after-quarter, year-after-year. Lean practices improve quality and productivity by taking cost and waste out of all facets of an operation, from the procurement of raw materials to the shipment of finished goods.
Lean Benefits
The benefits of a lean culture are significant. The Kemet Corporation cut logistics costs by 20%, Goodyear Tire saved more than $5 million a year in its direct ship warehouse and Xerox generated ROI of 300% applying Lean practices. Five Lean Guiding Principles govern every activity Ryder performs for customers. These include:
- People involvement: engaging every employee to root out waste, eliminate problems and make improvements
- Built-in quality: preventing mistakes before they happen, engineering processes to make them “mistake proof”
- Standardization: documenting best practices and making sure they are followed
- Short lead time: continuous flow of people, materials, equipment and process to ensure that customers receive defect-free products that are pulled through the supply chain at the right place, at the right time in the right quantity
- Continuous improvement: understanding that no matter how well a process works, there’s room to make it better
Do you – or does your 3PL – use lean processes to streamline your supply chain? Leave us a comment to discuss.
Learn more about how lean methodologies can help you drive a high-performing supply chain. And stay tuned for our next post, which explores the importance of deep expertise – in logistics and vertical market requirements – in optimizing supply chains.