Your organization, a company that manufactures fitness equipment such as treadmi

Question

Your organization, a company that manufactures fitness equipment such as treadmills and elliptical machines, is about to introduce lean concepts into its operations in order to be more competitive with foreign manufacturers. The foreman from the assembly department, however, does not think that his employees have the time to be involved with the lean initiative. Provide a convincing argument about why it is important for the assembly line workers to play a part.   

Thanks to anyone willing to help!

Explanation / Answer

The primary aim for any lean initiative is to reduce the wastages from the system. Reducing or removal of wastages leads to a reduction in operating expenses and/ or increase in throughput. For example, if the assembly workers can reduce the overall lead time of manufacturing a single piece of equipment by reducing the non-value-added (NVA) activities, they are left with idle time which will accumulate for time saved in all the parts produced and can be used to produce more number of parts. In other words, the throughput increases. Added to this is the lead time reduction per part which will create a substantial competitive advantage for the company in the market for which customers may be willing to pay a premium price or even if they not, the market share will definitely improve. These will lead to the opportunities for the company to realize more profit. When more profit is earned, it will be shared with the employees and the employees' wages will improve. Other forms of wastage reduction in the context of the assembly will include raw material consumption reduction, transportation reduction, reduction in consumable usage, movement reduction and so on all of which will reduce the operating expenses leading to more profit.

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