Lean System

Lean production is the most significant approach in operations and supply chain management in the past half century. Toyota Production System, which emphasized on elimination of waste and respect for people has set a benchmark for the lean approach. In the following essay, importance of lean production system, key factors of achieving it, and the way Deere & Co.(John Deere) applied this concept in its production would be examined.

Shah and Ward (2007) defined lean production as an integrated socio-technical system whose main objective is to eliminate waste by concurrently reducing or minimizing supplier, customer, and internal variability. It also correlates with the concept of Just In Time (JIT) which is a pull system meaning production need is driven my market demand as shown in Fig. 1.

Fig.1

Lean system is important to manufacturing industry as it could bring huge benefits to corporations such as reducing inventory cost, reducing cycle time, reducing defect rate etc. Deere Co., an American manufacturer of agricultural machinery, had been facing the production problems such as the lack of flexibility of suppliers, long lead time and inventory pile-up. John Deere had to look for exit so it sparked off the supplier development program to make its supply chain lean.

In general, there are 3 factors for a balanced lean system. They are namely lean layout, lean production schedule and lean supply chain. The first two focus on internal issues while the last one stress on the whole supply chain. John Deere successfully made its business more prosperous by launching the suppliers development program. In the following paragraphs, the cooperation of John Deere and R&B Machining and Grinding Company (one of John Deere’s out-sourced supplier) would be focused.

There are three factors for a lean layout, which are group technology, quality at the source and JIT production. For example, John Deere helped R&B to modify the operations for making rib roller...