Improvement of Materials handling processes by applying Lean manucaturing techniques

Research Abstract

During last years companies invert more money and resources to improve. They want to optimisation their money, time and space. Therefore the different improvements tools help organisation to optimise its processes to achieve more efficient results. The organization or company can be a private business, a non-profit organization or a government agency. Most improvement techniques were developed during the Manufacturing era, and nowadays many of the methodologies have been successfully adapted to work in the services business. Altough there are different challenges in every type of industry, in fact the main objective is to be able to apply in all industries and functions these methodologies and tools. It should be taking into account that the improvement tools are focused on "doing things right" more than "doing the right thing". In general, they attempt to reduce variation and/or wastage in processes and activities. Lean Manufacturing, or lean production, is the optimal way of producing goods through the removal of waste and implementing flow, as opposed to batch and queue. Lean manufacturing is a generic process management philosophy derived mostly from the Toyota Production System (TPS) [12]. Toyota's development of ideas that later became Lean may have started at the turn of the 20th century with Sakichi Toyoda, in a textile factory with looms that stopped themselves when a thread broke, this became the seed of autonomation and Jidoka. Apart from these advantages, Lean Manufacturing methodology also has technical and functional challenges, always to find the best performance.

Research Keywords

Improvement of Materials handling processes by applying Lean manucaturing techniques