Free Lean Manufacturing Business Plan Sample

Question 1

Yes. The lean principles can be incorporated into the completely online business. According to Poppendieck (2002), “Lean principles have proven not only to be universal, but to be universally successful at improving results” (p.1). Therefore, it is possible to incorporate the principles of lean into the online business since they can be applied universally. The incorporation of lean thinking in the completely online business would require specific principles such as value, value stream, flow, pull, and perfection. For example, the lean principles enable the business to eliminate unnecessary intermediate steps, time and people and leaves the activities, time and people that adds value to the product. For instance, according to Poppendieck (2002), eBay, a complete online business established the use of lean principles in the mid-1990’s to add value to their products. The company achieved this “by eliminating all the unnecessary steps in the trading value chain.” (p.2). The company enhanced its software capabilities by responding to the client requests that were made online. Customers were allowed to suggest improvements through e-mail. Subsequently, their ideas were implemented on a daily basis to result in what is now a competitive advantage of eBay.
Another example of the lean principles in the online business is the Digital River, which introduced the software download market through lean software delivery. The company developed sophisticated website that contained customized components to fit the ‘look and feel’ customer specification Poppendieck (2002). Therefore, it is evident the lean principles can be applied in the online business to add value to the products through the customer-company communication on improvement of products. The principles can be used to add value by removing waste through shortening time required to recognize the problem. This involves utilizing the strategy by eBay and Digital River by requesting the client to identify the problem and responding to the problem immediately.

Question 2

Agile and lean are two paradigms which relate to each other in a number of ways. They are essential components of the concept of the supply chain. Time impression is one of the main ways the paradigms relate to one another. However the motivation behind this is slightly different. Lean production techniques focus on the removal or avoidance of waste materials. The activities that do not bring more value to a product or service are removed and even those that do, are compressed. But agile also emphasizes on time impression in information and materials flows, but with the aim of increasing the responsiveness of business procedures. Toyota Company has applied it in its manufacturing operations in the removal of waste materials (Naim, Naylor, and Barlow 1999).
Additionally, the paradigms focus on the objective to develop a combined continuous supply chain, where participants are seen as virtual enterprises. The supply chain has the objectives of providing additional value to the consumer. Thus, there is a requirement to obtain the accurate and correct market know-how and offer that information back to the supply chain members who are harmonized to deliver the customer needs and wants. The positioning of the pull-push boundary and carrying of the levels of stock on the boundary are very essential. FMCG companies use these techniques to determine their responsiveness to unpredictable demand which plays a role in business success. (Naim et. Al 1999)
Lean forms the foundation of agility because the relationship between agile and lean becomes inverted. Lack of agility will increase waste, but this may not be similar to agility making the supply chain leaner. The problem associated with it is the ability to removing unevenness. Agility is more about transforming and brings changes. Lean practice has revolutionized the downstream steps of the supply chain, developing according to the demand pull and in general increasing agility. To conclude, agility and lean are twins linked, and they can only function with the help of each other 

Question 3

Interdisciplinary teams
This culture involves building interdisciplinary teams by enhancing collaboration and uniform standards among the employees. The uniform standards among the employees should be based on professionalism and safety.

Managers teach/enable

In order to enable the managers in the organization to teach their employees action items such as delegation and prioritizing can be employed. When the managers delegates their assignment they save time and hence reduce waste. The managers can also teach their employees on how to prioritize task with respect to urgency and importance in order to save time.

Seek the ultimate performance, the absence of waste

In order to seek the ultimate performance that can help to reduce waste, individual training the understanding the concept behind the team is important. It is leader’s role to understand the involvedness of managing and creating high-performance teams. Similarly, employees can be trained in different techniques to reduce waste (Armstrong 2007).

Root cause analysis

The root analysis might apply the direct cause and the causal links to determine the cause of the problem and hence reducing errors. It is necessary to determine the direct cause of the problem and the underlying cause to eliminate waste effectively.

Rewards: group sharing

The groups sharing approach can be rewarded by reward to enhance the performance of the groups. Individual awards can be given to ensure that employees are motivated to compete within the group.

Supplier is ally

In order to make the suppliers ally it is important to engage in regular communication with them in order to enhance timely delivery of goods and services.

Information sharing

Constant and effective communication tools should be applied to the employees so that they can effectively communicate with each other and thus enhance information sharing within the organization.

Removing waste, reduce cost

The lean principles can be applied to add value to the product through requesting the customers to identify improvements that the organization should engage in.

Customer focus

The employees need to understand the customers in terms of need and preference so that they can add value to the products to meet these needs.

Process driven

The process driven culture involves engaging the employees in continuous improvement such as maintaining enthusiasm for the process.

References

Armstrong, M. (2007). A Handbook of Employee Reward Management and Practice. London: Kogan Page.
Naim, M., Naylor, J., & Barlow, J. (1999, July). Developing lean and agile supply chains in the UK housebuilding industry. In Proceedings of IGLC Vol. 7, 26-28.
Poppendieck, M. (2002). Principles of Lean Thinking. Poppendieck.LLC, 1-7. Retrieved from http://www.sel.unsl.edu.ar/ApuntesMaes/Anteriores/MetodologiasAgiles/LeanThinking.pdf