Lean Manufacturing is an effort to reduce waste, minimize costs, and provide just-in-time cost savings.

Lean Manufacturing is a systematic approach to design, manufacture and market a product of a higher quality, in a shorter time frame, at lower cost with more variety.  The Lean Manufacturing tools can be used to improve almost any business.  It is not uncommon to improve profitability by 200% to 1,000% over a 1 to 3-year period.

Common Lean Manufacturing Tools include Kaizen, 5S, Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Standardized Work, Just In Time (JIT) Inventory, Pull Systems, Takt Timing, Cellular Manufacturing, Visual Controls, Statistical Process Control (SPC), Production Flow Smoothing, and Set-up Time Reduction.

Lean Consulting is customized to your organization's current manufacturing situation and typically includes a combination of training, hands-on preparation and hands-on consulting.

Benefits of implementing a Lean Manufacturing System

	Lower Cost to Produce
	Elimination of Waste
	Shorter Time to Produce
	Higher Quality
	Lower Inventory

Tools of Lean Manufacturing

	Standard Work: employees will learn the seven types of waste and how to eliminate them in order to lower costs.
	5S: a technique used to remove waste associated with disorganization
	Just-In-Time (JIT) /Kanban: used to eliminate inventory by using a "pull" system versus a typical "push" system
	Kaizen: continuous improvement through incremental changes
	Set-up Time Reduction: the minimization of set-up time for equipment or administrative processes
	Total Productive Maintenance (TPM): making sure that equipment is available when it is needed through continuous maintenance
	Value Stream Mapping: process-flow charting to identify critical path of the value-added processes in the manufacturing of product
	8D Problem Solving: use of critical thinking skills to work as a group to solve the root cause of problems, originally developed by Ford
	Single Piece Flow: the processing of the product by one operator in a cell environment to minimize production time and man-to-machine ratio
	Supply Chain Management: managing suppliers and outsourcing much of the supply process to reduce inventory and delivery time

CalTraining provides training in Lean Manufacturing via the Kaizen event format. A Kaizen event is a series of continuous improvement (Kaizen) exercises based on a Lean Manufacturing tool.  Savings are dramatic and rapid over a one-week period utilizing an Lean Manufacturing tool.  Our Kaizen event is comprehensive including training, preparation and hands-on consulting.  On the final day a formal presentation is offered to executive management demonstrating cost savings and profit increases.  

Every Lean Manufacturing program is customized to the client's current business processes, administration and culture.  We ensure that Lean Manufacturing becomes a culture and lasting business transformation.

During this time, the teams will learn and apply the principles of Lean Manufacturing on the shop floor so that at the conclusion of each event a real cost savings will be implemented. Depending on the type of exercise employed, savings in excess of $50,000 annually can be expected.

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