{"id":1208,"date":"2012-05-04T15:16:58","date_gmt":"2012-05-04T22:16:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.plm.automation.siemens.com\/t5\/Siemens-PLM-Corporate-Blog\/The-Topic-of-Lean-Manufacturing-Part-2\/ba-p\/334877"},"modified":"2026-03-26T11:33:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:33:11","slug":"the-topic-of-lean-manufacturing-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/news\/the-topic-of-lean-manufacturing-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The Topic of Lean Manufacturing: Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/A>In the first post<\/A><\/SPAN> of this series I posed three questions to ask yourself of your lean manufacturing strategy.  I responded to the first question of whether you were implementing waste in production; i.e. are you planning, designing and installing production systems that are not as lean as they could be? 

My argument was that, yes you are if you\u2019re not using technology which can help you plan, simulate, validate and optimize those systems before you implement them.  \u201cThe challenge starts,\u201d according to Andy Jacobs, General Manager at Applied Manufacturing Technologies (AMT), \u201cin the design of production systems.\u201d  He goes on to explain; \u201cThere [are] a multitude of factors to consider when designing automated systems and the complexity of options available today make process design a critical stage in building lean systems.\u201d



It\u2019s a challenge that is only becoming more complex.  Market fluctuations, competitive threats and increasing demand for raw materials and energy requires getting the most out of your manufacturing investments.  It\u2019s no longer enough to improve the productivity of a purely capacity-driven model; you need to constantly assess capability to become more flexible, sustainable and competitive in the most efficient means possible.  This is where the second question comes in; are you maximizing your return?  In other words, are the efforts and costs of your lean manufacturing initiatives providing the highest return they can?

There is no doubt, lean methods can and do deliver value, however traditional strategies focused on optimization of existing systems typically means that a team is sent down to the shop floor to focus on a particularly costly work cell or one that seems to have the biggest issue in terms of throughput or quality.  Many times these efforts lead to physical prototypes or mockups which at best provide limited or stepwise functional assessments.  There are three very distinct issues with this approach which can make it extremely hard to fully understand the impact of complex changes to the system: