Small manufacturers (and just about everybody else) have been sold on the idea that lean tools are primarily for cost cutting. So small manufacturers employ lean tools expecting big savings that may not be forthcoming, given that many of them are already practiced at keeping costs as close to the bone as possible.
The value of lean tools for small manufacturers lie, not so much in their cost cutting potential, as in their potential for creating agility. One company has promised several of its largest customers that it will keep a month’s worth of the products it needs in the warehouse at all times. In other words, the vendor has promised the customer that it can order a month’s worth of any of the products it uses with no lead-time.
If this weren’t challenging enough, the customer will sometimes order a full month’s worth of several products, then order another month’s worth of those same products within a week or two. And if all that weren’t challenging enough, the sales office often promises similar service to lesser customers.
If this company implements lean, hoping for “promised” cuts in payroll, improvements in efficiency and reduced costs elsewhere, it’s missing the largest strategic use of lean: the ability to meet customer service demands while keeping inventories as low as possible. In fact, it might actually go the wrong direction if the initiatives the company takes to make it “leaner” actually diminish service. This company needs agility, the ability to meet the sometimes capricious and unreasonable demands of customers each time, all the time.
Focus on Cycle Times and the Customer
What’s the small manufacturer to do? Focus on manufacturing cycle times, inventory levels and customer service rather than cost cutting. Focus on improving efficiencies as a path toward operational excellence, not as a move toward labor cost reductions. Understand that smooth, consistent flow of information and material is more important than occasional bursts of speed.
For products that have long lead-times, ask, “If we could reduce the lead-time to the customer for this product, would we realize an advantage over our competitors, even if the cost of making that product stayed the same?” Where lead-times are short because you are keeping product in the warehouse (as in the case above), ask, “Can we maintain or even improve customer service even as we reduce inventories?”
All that said, make sure you know what your inventory buffers are costing you. What could the company above save in inventory if it were to ask the customer for one-day lead-time? Two days? The company may or may not decide to make changes to its promises, but it needs to know what the costs of those promises are. (This may seem to contradict my earlier statements, but giving the customer a shorter lead-time than it needs is as wasteful as keeping inventory on hand to meet a short lead-time. The company mentioned earlier sometimes risked providing poor service levels to large customers that very much needed a very short lead time in order to offer equal terms to much smaller, less frequent customers that may have been willing to have a one or two day lead-time.)
Does a focus on agility rather than cost cutting require different “lean tools”? No.
Workplace organization, quick setup, work standardization, pull systems, and error proofing are very much a part of agile manufacturing. If anything, their connection to agility is more intuitive and straightforward than is their connection to cost cutting.
On the other hand, a focus on agility does require a different strategic view on the part of leadership and a great deal of discipline on the part of supervisors and operators. It requires everyone to see lean initiative as a “top line” (better sales) strategy as contrasted to a “bottom line” (lower costs) tactic.
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