Introducing lean manufacturing at ESI

Summary form only given. Lean production is a collection of techniques to identify and reduce waste in the manufacturing process. By reducing waste, enormous gains in throughput and reductions in WIP inventory and cycle time can be achieved with no increase in resources. It was the promise of these advantages that caused ESI to begin the move to lean manufacturing in mid 2000. The move to lean manufacturing began with a series of meetings to define implementation methods, and included a demonstration of lean benefits using a simple hands-on simulation. A visit was also arranged to a manufacturer of capital equipment that had implemented lean manufacturing several years previously and was willing to share experiences. One of the major changes in philosophy that lean manufacturing brings is the "pull system". The "pull system" has build operations set up such that the time to complete each operation is defined by the rate of customer demand. We decided to implement a pull system for the assembly line of one of the product lines.