The logistical brilliance of lean manufacturing principles proved to be a gamechanger across multiple industries. Manufacturers currently getting on board with big data analytics to optimize their operations want ways to fuse these technological advances with their existing lean production codes, and who can blame them?
Given the likelihood for big data professionals to encounter business entities determined to protect their lean manufacturing systems, we felt it’d be wise to outline its origins. Long before the advent of lean manufacturing software and other integrations between waste minimization and data analytics, a socio-technical system developed by a company in Japan proved to be a precursor to the lean production principles and logistics refinement of today.
As the title of this piece revealed, the name of that Japanese company was Toyota. Now a multinational automotive manufacturer, Toyota started out building automatic looms for weaving cloth and other textiles. The company’s signature development was the ability of its machines to automatically stop when a problem occurred. This attribute, based on the principle known as jidoka, would lay the foundation for the company’s revolutionary approach to automaking known as the Toyota Production System.
The Toyota Production System was developed during the mid-20th century by industrial engineers Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda. The primary objectives of this approach were the elimination of overproduction, prevention of inconsistency, and reduction of waste. These core principles are now the pillars of modern lean manufacturing.
While Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda are the undisputed authors of TPS, their work was based on the observations and insights of Kiichiro Toyoda, the son of the original company founder. He was inspired by the way in which American supermarkets operated; the customer takes what they want and the store restocks accordingly. A symbiotic relationship is created where waste is minimized.
TPS encompasses a broad range of operational principles, but modern lean manufacturing places an almost exclusive focus on the waste prevention concepts developed by Toyota. This is due to a variety of factors, chief among them being the increasing automation of manufacturing operations and development of smart monitoring systems. While TPS was developed when humans played a larger role in the manufacturing process, modern lean production is understandably less preoccupied with this factor.
TPS has remained relatively unchanged for decades, a testament to its success. A similar consistency is being seen in the endurance of lean manufacturing. While it could be considered the open-source version of TPS, lean manufacturing is more than a generic set of principles developed to cut down on production waste and inefficiencies. It’s a code of conduct and road map for achieving maximum efficiency in the age of automation.
So next time a client laments about the importance of maintaining the existing lean framework for a big data integration, think twice before rolling your eyes in frustration. In order for manufacturing to maintain optimum efficiency in the new age of automation, it will have to marry lean production with big data analytics. Consider it a form of job security.