Plan ahead

Best-in-Class manufacturers know that successful implementation of lean manufacturing relies heavily on the right IT solutions.

Recent research by

on the interaction between lean and IT revealed that manufacturers are twice as likely to cut costs by adopting lean scheduling software applications and integrating them with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.

The outcome of such an approach has been shown to provide genuine supply chain visibility — a tool that empowers lean decision makers.

According to the survey, best-in-class decision-makers in a company need to know a range of factors, referred to as 'actionable data'. These include the need to know the current state of the production plan or schedule, the state of execution against the plan, customer demand and the status of work in progress.

The research suggested that these decision-makers can measure the benefits of lean manufacturing implementation by looking at delivery time and how well demand is connected to execution. They can also consider how improvements in scrap levels affect the level of quality.