Lean Manufacturing Process Improvement

Introducing a Lean approach to a manufacturing process can have an immediate, positive impact on your efficiency and productivity.

Use simulation to experiment with Lean techniques to improve efficiency

Typical results experienced by manufacturers include:

Cost reductions of over 80% Increase in throughput of 40-80% Increase of productivity of 70-125% Reduce work in progress by over 80%

You can achieve these results by making changes like:

Leveling Production to match demand Reducing end-to-end cycle time to less than customers expectation of reasonable wait time Using Just-in-Time delivery schedules with suppliers Monitoring quality in a responsive manner Properly (rather than quickly) fixing all problems at the source and accepting the higher short term cost of doing this Empowering and training employees to participate in continuous improvement and increasing communication and visibility to make this easy for them Reducing change over time so that batch sizes can be reduced cost effectively

All the above needs to be done together it would be tough to achieve them individually. But most of them involve making decisions about a wide range of parameters (e.g. batch sizes, J-i-T schedules, acceptable cycles times, Kanban quantities, container sizes).

How do you get these parameters correct without playing a guessing game?
Simulations have long been used to train employees and create insights into how the benefits of Lean Manufacturing can be achieved, but those games don't allow quantification of exactly how a Lean process will behave. They create insights, and that is great, but it is not enough for making sure all the changes work in unison and actually deliver the benefits promised. Discrete event simulation software, like SIMUL8, does show accurately how a process will behave, both before and after implementing Lean. It means you can get the Lean implementation right-first-time.

What you get from using Discrete Event Simulation Software during and after a Lean implementation is:

An accurate prediction of likely cost savings of introducing Lean to your manufacturing process A detailed understanding of exactly how the parameters impact overall performance The ability to test out any number of combinations of parameter values and decide the ones that are best for your implementation. Accurate predictions of the speed of response your customers will see A quick and easy-to-run device to obtaining buy-in from senior management or train employees A tool for empowering employees by allowing their process improvement ideas to be tested with easy to understand visual and numerical feedback on the ideas effectiveness

SIMUL8 Helps General Motors on the Road to Recovery

GM Holden, a subsidiary of GM, is Australia's largest automotive company and is GMs niche manufacturer of rear wheel drive 6 & 8 cylinder vehicles.

The virtual manufacturing team at GM Holden were faced with the challenge of responding to an increase in demand without increasing the total number of hours worked on the complex general assembly line. Read the rest of the Case Study

Find out how SIMUL8 can help with:

Lean Manufacturing Simulation Six Sigma Process Improvement

Read Manufacturing Case Studies:

Find out how Wyeth Pharmaceutical saved more than $1m by improving their processes with SIMUL8. Read more... Read more Manufacturing Case Studies