solutions for your business challenge lean manufacturing lean supply chain

The Keys to Achieving a Lean Supply Chain

One of the biggest obstacles companies face when trying to achieve a Lean supply chain is the reality that partners don't trust or share enough information with each other, so each participant in the supply chain has inventory and lead time buffers to protect against uncertainty. Inventory excess is the high price for reducing that uncertainty. So, one clear objective for any Lean supply chain initiative is reducing cycle, lead and touch time, with the least amount of transportation, inventory, motion, waiting, over-processing, over-production and defects as possible to fulfill demand.

Lean Six Sigma philosophies say that business planning and analysis must be designed to minimize waste (inventory, time, effort) and achieve results in the shortest, easiest, least costly ways possible. While many Lean manufacturing tools can be setup to do this for typical pre-defined processes like forecast acceptance, they struggle to deal with the increasing multitude of unplanned events that occur each day. It is these events that undermine the objectives of a lean supply chain.

Making the right decisions quickly when unplanned events occur requires rapid visibility of the event, very fast and flexible analysis of alternatives, real-time collaboration with notification to other key decision-makers in the Lean supply chain, and alignment of decisions with corporate objectives. With the proper Lean manufacturing tools, cycle times can be reduced even in environments where continual unplanned events are the norm, allowing you to operate more efficiently, provide better customer service, and predict and prevent waste rather than report on it after the fact.

The Right Lean Manufacturing Tools Make a Difference

Business environments are changing more rapidly with new technologies and greater global competition requiring that your business processes and supporting Lean manufacturing tools have the necessary flexibility to rapidly adapt. Lean Six Sigma thinking re-enforces this with the principle of continuous improvement.

Kinaxis™ RapidResponse™ is allows you to model and implement new supply chain planning processes as needed to stay ahead of the competition. RapidResponse provides support not only for pre-defined processes in the fastest, easiest possible way, but also flexibility and configurability on the fly for managing the multitude of unplanned events that occur each day. RapidResponse supports kanban or consumption based replenishment design and ensures the design does not create excess or shortage conditions. It also provides proactive alerting to changing demand or supply conditions that may cause exceptions if the current kanban design is not reviewed and altered to take into account the change.

Many companies have studied and utilized Six Sigma techniques to improve operating effectiveness throughout their organizations. Many others have initiated Lean manufacturing programs to realize operations performance efficiencies. But, to realize the full potential of your Lean supply chain initiatives, you need to deploy the Lean manufacturing tools required to deal with the realities of constant and increasing change throughout your global supply chain.