31.8 LEAN MANUFACTURING
Lean manufacturing focuses on the elimination of waste, formalizing a common source approach to machine design. Some general concepts to use when designing lean machines include,
- design the machine be faster than the needed cycle time to allow flexibility and excess capacity - this does seem contradictory, but it allows better use of other resources. For example, if a worker takes a bathroom break, the production can continue with fewer workers.
- people are part of the process and should integrate smoothly - the motions or workers are often described as dance like.
- use methods that are obvious, so that anybody can understand - this makes workers portable and able to easily cover for others.
To achieve these principles the complexity of a machine may be increased to decrease the manual labor and setup issues. In lean manufacturing the ideal batch size is one with no switchover time.