Lean business practices have been successfully used by some of the world’s biggest companies ranging from retailers to fintech companies. Being an optimization-focused industry, manufacturing businesses have been one of the forefront leaders of lean practices. In this article, we’ll look at what lean manufacturing is and how software can make it more efficient to follow lean practices for small and big manufacturers.
What is lean manufacturing? How’s it different from traditional methods?
Lean Manufacturing is a way of thinking about the manufacturing process that focuses on reducing waste, increasing efficiency, and improving quality. It’s based on the principles of value stream mapping, which helps businesses identify waste in their supply chain and eliminate it by working more closely with suppliers and customers.
SMEs using lean manufacturing practices improve their competitiveness through improved service levels, reduced costs, and better quality control.
In traditional manufacturing, it may be acceptable for parts of your production line to have low yields or high scrap rates as long as they’re offset by high volumes at other stages of production. This isn’t true in lean thinking since any type of waste will ultimately hinder your ability to meet customer demand.
Why is lean manufacturing important for SMBs?
With lean manufacturing, you can save time and money by reducing your time-to-market by streamlining your processes. This makes it easier to respond quickly when customer demand fluctuates or as competition heats up in your industry. By cutting out unnecessary steps in production or eliminating unnecessary storage space (such as excess inventory), you can also reduce costs without sacrificing quality.
Lean will not work if you do not have the right software
The goal of lean manufacturing is to streamline production and make it faster, cheaper, and easier for your company to produce a high-quality product. But there’s one problem: if you don’t have modernized software, then your lean manufacturing efforts are doomed from the start.
Lean manufacturing requires strict accuracy for it to work properly; otherwise, your process could be slowed down by hours or even days per day depending on how big of a mess things get out of hand. If this happens with your current ERP system or other types of database management systems that are used throughout various departments within your company then everything will fall apart quickly.
How can the software support lean manufacturing?
Lean manufacturing Software can help with planning, production, and delivery:
- Manufacturing software for SMB can be used for planning and scheduling purposes to ensure that projects are not delayed or wasted due to a lack of resources. Software should be able to manage resources effectively so as not to disrupt the production flow or increase costs unnecessarily.
- The software can also be used as a tool for communicating with suppliers so that they deliver goods on time without any delays or wastage due to overproduction or underproduction.
- Lean manufacturing software can provide real time data. This is important because it can help with improvements, decision-making, and quality control. Real-time data means that you will have access to information about your production process at any time.
- When you get real-time data from the machines in your factory, you can see where waste occurs and fix it before it becomes a problem.
- You can use real-time data from your lean manufacturing software to make decisions about improving your production environment based on what’s happening now rather than later when something goes wrong!
Benefits of using lean manufacturing software
There are many benefits to using Lean Manufacturing software such as improved productivity, quality, and efficiency.
- Improved productivity: More accurate forecasts and schedules, will help you to plan and meet your deadlines.
- Improved quality: By reducing waste, there’s less chance that defects will be introduced into your product.
- Improved efficiency: Using lean manufacturing software allows small manufacturers like yours to get more value out of every dollar spent on production.
Lean manufacturing requires that manufacturers focus on reducing lead times while maintaining high-quality standards. Manufacturing software can be used to help businesses to adopt lean manufacturing principles and achieve these goals. If you are an SME manufacturer and want to stay competitive, you must have the right software to help you manage production and inventory.
