Using Lean Methodologies For Sustainable Manufacturing Article Review Examples

Lean manufacturing is perceived as a toolbox that cuts the total costs and develops the value of industrial products. The lean managing concept is one which aims at wasting costs in every level of the manufacturing procedure; yet, only recently the research has linked lean management methods with the improvement of environmental sustainability. In those studies it is proposed that lean manufacturing is more than a toolbox that can improve manufacturing productivity; it is a course and an attitude that has to be unified with day-to-day manufacturing management to achieve sustainability. The manufacturing industry has substantial dares in the existing governing and political environment with achieving a financially and ecologically sustainable business model. Lean manufacturing has established itself as an example for both financial sustainability and ecological management.
A number of recent studies have made known that both lean and environment-friendly practices and “zero-waste” procedures also lead to cutbacks in total costs. While these policies have been studied for all-purpose manufacturing in the literature, they have not been thoroughly examined in detail for the foundry industry. In the papers examined (Torielli et. al., 2010; McCright et. al., 2010; Larson et. al. 2004) we see an evaluation of the current literature and a description of how lean manufacturing can provide an applicable framework for ecologically and financially sustainable industries and examples of lean and green knowledge and methods which can be functional for industries in a universal context.
Manufacturing companies have to assess the volume of energy utilized in achieving their mission and production goals and this has proved to be a major assignment as customary accounting techniques have not paid much attention to recording the levels of energy usage. Power may be wasted in lots of different ways during the daily procedures a company. Key consumers inside a company are classified in three core categories: facilities, transportation, and procedures. The facilities utilized by the company in accomplishing its tasks need to be warm or air-conditioned, ventilated, and lighted. These elementary facility functioning needs are assessed to cause over one-third of power consumption in the U.S.A. alone. Except in cases of a company having new or recently built premises and equipment, planned and supplied under the severest LEED standards of the U.S. Green Building Council, the chances for recovering a substantial percentage of this energy are great. A percentage exceeding 28% of power utilized in the U.S. is consumed to move people and products. The usage of power in transportation is utilized primarily in delivering a company’s goods or in traveling to customers in order to offer services.
Supplementary transports may be required for employees to attend summits and seminars, acquire supplies or services, or representing the corporation in out-of-premises occasions. Another important and frequently disregarded use of power is in material control within the company’s process zones. Forklift trucks, automatic stacker-retriever systems, and conveyor belts all consume energy in order to operate. In different industries, processes may simply have the need of workplace equipment or they may need general systems heated by a fuel such as oil. Almost all manufacturing companies have a huge variety of daily routines functioning on several types of fuel. Manufacturers of green technology may still have this huge variety of processes. Overall company production may be achieved by reviewing the company’s expenses to energy providers, but virtually all of them can precisely assign that energy to the specific in-house user. Exceptions could be considered the large users of a fuel that is matchless inside a firm and those exceptions are quite rare in single companies. Firms can conduct an accurate estimate of their in-house users or make special attempts to segregate those users through adding internal meters. These attempts can provide important visibility of energy use patterns for small firms.
The lean manufacturing efforts were first emphasized in modern manufacturing by a five-year study conducted at Harvard University by Womack et. al. and was published in “The Machine that Changed the World” book in 1990. In that research, the past of the automobile industry was examined and the diversity of the various productivity enhancement methods applied by Toyota were described under the umbrella term “lean production”. This production structure, the Toyota Production System (TPS) is the archetypal framework and viewpoint that can be utilized to manage manufacturing establishments and procedures as well as to reorganize contractors and consumers to provide the optimal quality, lowest costs, and shortest lead times through the eradication of the numerous ways of generating waste.
Despite Toyota’s fresh accomplishments in applying a lean manufacturing philosophy, Henry Ford is thought of by many academics to be the founder of the lean philosophy, and was allegedly an expert at tracking waste in the production procedure. Ford claimed that, “It is the little things that are hard to see – the awkward little methods of doing things that have grown up and which no one notices. And since manufacturing is solely a matter of detail, these little things develop, when added together, into very big things” . Energy waste reduction is usually seen as the core of the lean philosophy concept and is roughly described and can be thought of in a number of ways. Another word that is utilized by Levinson, as an alternative to waste, is friction. Friction can be describes as continuing problems and inadequacies that become generally accustomed features of a job and put a barrier on productivity The lean manufacturing literature archetypally identifies seven or eight specific kinds of waste that must be confronted on the journey to lean:

Defects

Waiting
Unnecessary processing
Overproduction
Movement
Inventory
Unused employee creativity
Complexity
As more and more firms tried to become lean and fought with lean implementation, it became obvious that administering lean procedures only as a toolbox on the production level did not work. Womack initiated the course to become lean and delineated five steps to drive leaning’s successful application: The specification of value from the perspective of the end consumer by product category, the identification of all the stages in the value stream for each product family, the elimination -whenever this becomes a possibility- of the stages that do not generate value, the formation of the value-creating stages in tight order so the product will be delivered efficiently to the consumer, the chance for consumers to create value from the next demanding activities, as value is quantified, value streams are acknowledged, wasted stages are get rid of, and flow is instituted, to initiate the procedure again and stay on it until a state of excellence is reached in which flawless value is generated with no waste .
Finally, a widespread variety of basic techniques are examined in the literature; techniques that can be applied to any type of industry so that the total amount of energy that is essential to achieve the firm’s tasks can be decreased. This cutback in power consumption transforms into placing the company in a more robust economic environment over time and at the same time, backing lasting sustainability of the environment in general. For firms involved in the advance of unconventional energy products or ecological tools, enthusiastic contribution in a serious energy reduction plan is more than compatible with the structural mission of the company and the sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives that are often implemented. Inadequacy to develop green expertise in highly effective production structures is an extremely careless action. The formation of an active Environmental Management System (EMS) that sets inspiring goals and allows employees to reach them together with a serious attempt to detect pointless and preventable energy consumption and application of methods to reduce energy consumption can work in an organized way to guarantee a open-minded firm its long-term fiscal feasibility and can have an important impact to the cutback of greenhouse gases and improvement of global climate. It is unavoidable for sustainable development oriented firms to set an example of lean manufacturing initiatives that will inspire companies in every industry to commence ambitious plans intended to contribute to global sustainability.

Works Cited

Ford. (1930). Moving Forward. Doubleday, Doran & Company incorporated.
McCright, & Bergmiller. (2009). Techniques for Enhancing Sustainability of Industrial Operations. IEEE Green Technology Conference. Lubbock, TX: IEEE Green Technology Conference.
Perfect Complements: Synergies between Lean Production and Eco-Sustainability Initiatives. (2004). Environmental Quality Management, σσ. 27-36.
Torielli, & al., e. (2010, August 30). Using lean methodologies for economically and environmentally sustainable foundries. China Foundry, σσ. 74-88.
Womack, & Jones. (1996). Lean Thinking: Banish Waste and Create Wealth in Your Corporation. New York: Simon & Schuster.