Lean Manufacturing

The delivery of real bottom-line results from manufacturing improvements has proven to be much harder than expected for most companies. TQM, Zero-Defect Manufacturing, and Business Process Re-engineering have dropped off the landscape for taking much too long and failing to deliver the promised results. Lean Six Sigma is now experiencing the same fundamental difficulty. Delineating a quantitative approach, Lean Manufacturing: Business Bottom-Line Based shows you how to revitalize Lean Six Sigma by aligning it with your business bottom line and thus delivering results that your executives, business leaders, and customers expect. Written by an expert who has transformed product design and manufacturing at companies ranging from Maytag and Visteon to General Electric, the book demonstrates that an awareness of manufacturing business metrics is absolutely essential for every lean manufacturing practitioner. The author has seen first-hand the limitation of traditional lean manufacturing driven by business bottom lines. He outlines case studies linking world events and manufacturing efficiency and presents lean manufacturing strategies and techniques designed to accelerate responses to current and future events on the floors of the worlds manufacturing facilities. Typically, advice on lean manufacturing comes in the form of techniques regarding a particular tool or tool-box, yet the factory floor, like everything in the global community, is profoundly driven by business bottom lines. This book presents a systematic approach to improve business bottom lines through identifying and eliminating waste, and adding value and fulfillment by flowing the product at the demand of the customer.