Lean Manufacturing HistoryLean Manufacturing is employed by many manufacturing or product development companies as a set of practices to reduce their production or manufacturing costs. This set of practices which is in its evolved stage has undergone tremendous revolution since the 18th century, when Benjamin Franklin sowed the seeds of a waste reduction technique which has gone on to become a major money spinner for the manufacturing companies. History revisited…. Most of the history books and online sources which we read often inform us that Toyota was the first company who initiated the Lean Manufacturing principles at the time of manufacturing their first car. In essence, it was Henry Ford who had first conceptualized Lean Manufacturing techniques in his time (early 1920s) which was later put into practice by Toyota's Production Systems that later went on to become the revolutionary TPS. But Henry Ford was not the one who had actually identified what Lean could do. Fredrick Taylor, the founder of scientific management proposed that any new technique or product for improvement must be researched into and if it is found fit, the whole organization must adopt to it as soon as possible. Some of what Taylor explained has gone on to become one of Lean Manufacturing foundations. Taylor's creation in 1911 named Principles of Scientific Management was taken as an inspiration by the famous exponent of the terminology "Single minute exchange of die (SMED)", Shigeo Shingo. Year after year passed by with the concepts of Lean gaining more impetus in the manufacturing circles as a tool for cost savings by waste reduction. It all continued till Henry Ford adopted these practices for mass production in his company. Called as Design for Manufacture (DFM), Ford believed that these practices had all in them to ensure that the business objectives of Ford could succeed. And as all fairy tales to come an end soon, this one did too with the technique collapsing as it could not incorporate the process of Pull Production. Enter Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of Toyota and the concept of Lean Manufacturing technique found its first meaningful business existence. Toyota was then foraying into the automobile market from its then conventional textile products. 1936 was the revolutionary year for Toyota with it bagging the first major contract with the Japanese government, and the soon he did, his processes ran into rough weather. Kiichiro Toyoda's recommendation that the faults be fixed first and then the production commence went on to outlay one of the first applications of Kaizen principles industrially. Post the second world war, was when Lean actually established itself in the Japanese market with Taiichi Ohno advocating that the work-scheduling should not be based on production targets or sales targets but actual sales. This notion saw all the concepts of Lean Manufacturing coming together with the TPS and giving rise to what is known today as , JIT Production. And so the dream story of Lean Manufacturing continues. Indeed, the Lean Manufacturing history is full of experiments and possible failures. |