Product and process design drive 80% of the total costs, but most continuous improvement effort is spent trying to reduce the remaining 20% in current production.
Taiichi Ohno, the father of Toyota’s production system, created the “Seven Wastes,” a nice list of ways to categorize wastes in production. The wastes he identified in his book are overproduction, waiting, transportation, over-processing, inventory, defects and motion. The best time to remove these wastes is in the design, or redesign, of the process. Build Lean into the process instead of trying to add it later.
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Source: Industry Week
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