TEX PLASTICS - WHAT IS LEAN MANUFACTURING ?

Tex Plastics has embarked on a process of change within its manufacturing facilities using lean manufacturing principles to bring about efficiency improvements. Lean Manufacturing begins with the customer & focuses on the elimination of waste & the creation of flow. Its purpose is to reduce cost & variation to improve responsiveness by making the most effective use of our people & process. The origins of Lean are derived mostly from the Toyota production system.

The 5 key principles of Lean are:

Specify what creates value from the customers perspective
Identify the value stream for each product family
Make those actions that create value flow
Only make what is pulled by the customer just in time
Strive for perfection by continually removing layers of waste

Lean looks at what is called the value streams of the business, these can be identified as the sequence of events in the manufacturing chain which are value and non value added, and that convert raw materials / information into a finished product or service that the customer demands.

By identifying and understanding the value streams, areas of non value added activity can be recognised with the aim to reduce these significantly. Non value added operations are seen as waste and the aim is to continually minimise waste within the value stream. The seven wastes can be identified as follows:-

Transport
Inventory
Motion
Waiting
Over production
Over Processing
Defects & rework 

An eighth waste can also be added to this list which is possibly the most important, and that is the under use of employee talent. The knowledge and experience gained by a company’s employees is not always exploited by its senior managers. Lean encourages problem solving at all levels trusting in its ‘experts’ to come up with the most cost effective solutions. Lean encourages Tex to utilise the experience of the real experts who are the people that actually do the job to take command of their work environment & use their knowledge to arrange/rearrange the workplace to improve the quality of everything we do. This allows us to consistently deliver superior customer value & ever reducing cost

By concentrating on waste reduction within our own manufacturing plant we can ensure that we find the best Lean solution for our customers avoiding all unnecessary costs.

Tex Industrial plastics Lean journey is supported by a number of training agency partners who are teaching various Lean manufacturing techniques at all levels within the business:

MAS east midlands www.mas-em.org.uk
The manufacturing institute www.manufacturinginstitute.co.uk
Cogent www.cogent-ssc.com
North Devon College Barnstaple www.ndevon.ac.uk

Our mission is to continually improve our manufacturing process by implementing Lean manufacturing methods from order in-take to dispatch. Ensuring at all times that we deliver value to our customers by reducing internal wastes and not passing unnecessary costs.