Lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, plug-and-play, flexible manufacturing -- companies are searching the cupboards for solutions as the U.S. economy shows signs of contraction. At center stage is the lean enterprise. The heart of lean is the Toyota Production System, with its origins at Toyoda Spinning and Weaving, and its development and implementation by Taiichi Ohno at Toyota Motor Co. The system combines Just-in-Time with "autonomation" and "kanban." As defined in Taiichi Ohno's Toyota Production System (published by Productivity Press, English translation © 1988), autonomation is "automation with a human touch[and] prevents the production of defective products, eliminates overproduction, and automatically stops abnormalities on the production line allowing the situation to be investigated." Kanban is a tagging tool that tracks production.

In the first part of this special report about the lean enterprise, IEN turns to industry leaders for their perspectives on going lean. Next month, learn about applications of this strategy in the field.

So where and what is lean manufacturing today? Rockwell Automation's "Quick Response Manufacturing" considers "workplace layout, preventative maintenance, workplace re-design, several piece workflow and single minute exchange of dies," states John Ziehr, vp operations of Rockwell's Components and Packaged Applications Group. (Click here for more.)

Karl Wojcikiewicz, product marketing manager for ergonomic workstations at Bosch Rexroth Corp, describes lean manufacturing as the "identification and elimination of waste in the manufacturing process." He cautions: "An 'improvement' that sacrifices quality is no improvement at all." (Click here for more.)

ABB's new Global Factory strategy "respects an economy, marketplace and product commonality that is borderless," notes Kari Tikkanen, vp and general manager of operations for ABB Automation Inc's Drives & Power Products Group. "We think customers worldwide should be able to specify, order, receive, install and operate [our] low-horsepower AC drives in 24 hours or less," he adds. The company's highly automated, multi-level assembly line is installed on top of ESD, conductive carpeting, and built in a continuous loop structure so that production can proceed constantly without stoppage or interruption. (Click here for more.)

Nematron's Jeff Crowell believes the lean enterprise involves factory, enterprise, and global integration. (Click here for more.)Mike Vanderklok, business process analyst at SupplyPro, agrees, noting that "lean manufacturing focuses on the systematic elimination of waste in manufacturing and administrative activities." (Click here for more.)

And according to Kevin Roach, vice president, GE Fanuc Automation, the lean approach "means not only removing excess costs but also increasing the productivity capabilities of the next generation of systems. By digitizing the factory, managers can achieve results quickly. Using Six Sigma methods and drawing on the collective experience from major manufacturers, plants can go to the next level of lean manufacturing." (Click here for more.)

Kevin Clark, engineering project manager at Pilz USA, says lean manufacturing "can include maintaining a minimal inventory, simplifying operations, and utilizing advanced manufacturing technologies." (Click here for more.)

Technology choices depend on the challenges faced by any given enterprise, industry experts tell IEN. "Open automation systems facilitate the flow of real-time information throughout the manufacturing enterprise, providing better visibility to production, quality, and inventory information," contends Don Holley, industrial automation manager at National Instruments. (Click here for more.)

"The factory floor to back office systems integration effort by necessity requires a partnership with the Information Systems (IS) group and the factory control engineers," Crowell tells IEN. "Both groups need to contribute to the architecture and the requirements. While there are still some differences in the nomenclature, common technology standards deployed across the enterprise are reducing the gaps in communication. For integration efforts involving global systems the partnership may need to include the first tier suppliers and in some cases the end customer as well as employee groups in multiple locations," Crowell says.

Keep It Simple if You Can

"With lean, you want to stop doing something," according to Ziehr. "But before you automate it, you must simplify it. Design it for functionality rather than just for design sake. Make it snap together with plastic plugs rather than driving screws onto a circuit board."

But Clark counters that automation is "only an optional solution to the problem. In some cases, automation has been eliminated in the best interest of lean manufacturing. Lean manufacturing has forced companies to implement 'smart' automation solutions."

"Companies can implement lean manufacturing with a minimum of capital investment," notes William A. Schwartz, vp of business development at TBM Consulting Group, which specializes in the implementation of lean strategies. "We tell manufacturing companies to use creativity before capital," Schwartz adds. (Click here for more.)

Advanced technology remains an essential building block of the lean approach, according to Nick Vande Steeg, who leads Parker Hannifin's lean initiative. For example, "E-business strategies, if properly focused, dramatically reduce human intervention while speeding the supply chain process," he says. (Click here for more.)

Wojcikiewicz adds: "What is lean in one application may not be lean in another. Some processes are better done by hand, others automated or semi-automated. The one common thread that ties all lean manufacturing initiatives together is continuous improvement. Since this improvement often involves changes in equipment or processes, it is most desirable to use machines and structures that are easily modified to accommodate changes."

Getting lean means "integrating new automation technologies into a manufacturing process in a cost effective manner," according to Dave Quebbemann, industrial automation marketing manager at Omron Electronics. "You could replace an operator and lower your product defect rate by utilizing an inexpensive vision system," he explains. (Click here for more.)

According to Rick Schultz, vp of manufacturing industry marketing at IT/supply chain provider Teradata, "lean manufacturing requires real-time data to enable flexibilityexecutives must be able to go to a central place to analyze cross-functional information simultaneously. This requires an Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW)." (Click here for more.)

Executive suite and factory floor attitudes represent a major impediment to a leaner enterprise. Explains Rob McKeel, vice president of GE Cisco Industrial Networks: "Shifting to a new paradigm for operations involves training, new job scopes and resources including people and technology. The changes can be very threatening and unsettling depending on the environment and it can be difficult to get everyone coordinated and motivated to move effectively in the same direction." (Click here for more.)

Cost can be challenge too, notes Clark. "Lean is a slow process with an equally slow payback," he says, although "identifying the ideal vendors with direct experience in lean manufacturing will minimize the inefficiencies." Time and training are other key issues. "Most lean solutions require at least a couple of years to implement including numerous setbacks and frustrations," Clark observes, so companies should "plan for both short and long term goals."

Adds Mike Delpha, vice president of operations for Prism eSolutions, a provider of ISO 9000 training, consulting, and support products: "Traditional on-site quality management consulting services can be labor-intensive and expensivethe best strategy is to combine on-site consulting services with a software package that delivers document management, training, collaboration tools, and project management in a single platform." (Click here for more.)

Access is also a huge problem, states David Prawel, president of Critical Reach Inc, which focuses on service and spare parts operations. "Not enough of the people who need access to corporate data actually can get it," Prawel points out. "Two different communities of people in a corporate manufacturing environment could benefit from having access to CAD data. One is the CAD and related group, who could or would use a CAD system and/or a CAD viewer, whether they have access to one or not." (Click here for more.)

This segment can "use complex CAD-like interfaces with lots of options, long pull-down menus and the like," Prawel notes. "The other far larger group consists of service people, service and spare parts managers, corporate managers, product managers, etc. who don't want to use a CAD system or a CAD viewer, or anything closely resembling software with this level of sophistication, and probably don't have access to one or a computer that could run one. They're part time users who need access to the data, but have no chance of getting at it with current software and infrastructure."

Lean Gets Smarter

Despite the challenges, the integrated lean enterprise may be within sight. "Many companies have tried various forms of integration, typically starting with batch processing of flat files," Crowell tells IEN, with SCADA systems feeding into MES and then supply chain systems. "With the advent of PC-based controls, the layers of the integration challenge have been collapsed into a set of fewer application technologies, each with a broader set of capabilities."

Kevin Clark believes that "Software packages will become more intuitive, requiring less programming. These plug-and-play software packages will replace programming intensive systems and save time in the implementation process."

Smart sensors, wireless technology, and advances in communications protocols will usher in a world of monitoring and e-diagnostics, predicts McKeel. "Adaptive manufacturing is the new frontier of flexible shop-floor solutions linked to Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and other collaborative enterprise applications," he says.

Quebbemann believes that "greater network capabilities will be prevalent. And there will be software products that encompass more than just single products such as an individual PLC family. They will encompass an entire family of PLCs and will be able to program products such as motion devices, network devices and others."

Other innovations could include "server-side solutions and zero client applications," according to Prawel. "Server-side lets corporate experts better expand and manage the applications and their interfaces," he continues. "Zero client lets users take advantage of applications without the hassle of upgrading field hardware or dealing with incompatible plug-ins and related firewall problems (from plug-ins)."

Also on the list -- the maturity of Java, higher bandwidths, and a switch from push to pull workflow. Explains Prawel: "In today's 'push' model of service data distribution, huge manuals and CDs are produced and 'dumped' on service people in conjunction with deep training classes. Then the service rep finds an unexpected model at the customer site (not the right preparation), or service updates come out and manufacturers wonder why they get forgotten in the heat of a complex service call. Service people should go to the point of service and identify and solve the problems on the spot. The correct data should be sitting on the corporate server and delivered when/if it's asked for."

Mobile handheld devices will "deliver the right service information to the right place at the right time, through simple web browser interfaces that enable service people to solve customer problems faster," according to Prawel. And mobile computing and GPS will combined "to route service people and make sure mission-critical information is already at the point of service when they get there."

Getting There

The transition won't be easy. "Automation systems and applications have a minimum 5 to 10 year lifecycle in discrete and process manufacturing plants," Holley points out. "As new manufacturing automation systems are installed, information from existing legacy systems must be integrated to fully control and optimize the manufacturing process." Still, many existing systems "have proprietary interfaces that could benefit from having an OPC interface retrofit, allowing information access to newer smart systems and application that have OPC support built-in," says Holley. "Manufacturing customers can leverage the OPC standard to implement and retrofit OPC servers and clients to existing legacy systems, providing plug-and-play connectivity and interoperability between new smart systems and existing legacy automation devices, control systems, and industrial networks across the manufacturing enterprise," he notes.

Adds McKeel: "Hardware advances such as the incorporation of Ethernet technologies, bridges and gateways and software advances such as information exchange protocols [DCOM, XML, etc.] and Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) systems are providing the foundation to merge the latest technologies with legacy systems and components as well as with business ERP systems. Companies need to take a holistic approach to legacy system integration in the context of an overall strategy to achieve leaner manufacturing operations."

Combining antiquated systems with the latest technology remains problematic, contends Vanderklok. "SupplyPro can integrate with many ERP systems including SAP and Oracle. Integration with legacy systems is also available but needs to be explored on a case by case basis."

Manufacturers can use service portals, Prawel suggests, as a way of merging the latest technologies with legacy systems and components. Such portals can aggregate, link, and deliver data as needed. Prawel enumerates the benefits of the approach: "No copying of data -- Link to it and deliver it. No update problems since the original source is linked so if it changes the latest is always available to the user who needs it. No requirement for integration of corporate data sources before companies can take advantage of new techniques and applications."

Meanwhile companies that "stick with the basics can still achieve significant gains," believes TBM's Schwartz. "The Internet will allow companies to use e-commerce linkages to streamline value chains. This means that individual companies within a value stream can begin to operate more like a single enterprise with the seamless flow of information and goods between companies."

In the end, getting lean comes down to people. Ziehr says: "It's vital to understand what is being done in a facility, what benefit it provides to the organization, and whether or not it needs to be acted on so that it can be done quicker, better and cheaper. At Rockwell, we're creating 'Lean Masters,' who attend class in lean manufacturing techniques, then visit our facilities and apply what they've learned. Ultimately, we want them to be master of lean manufacturing for their own facility, applying what they've learned to make a better factory."

(See below for an excerpt from Toyota Production System)

Repeating Why Five Times

When confronted with a problem, have you ever stopped and asked why five times? It is difficult to do even though it sounds easy. For example, suppose a machine stopped functioning:
1.Why did the machine stop?
There was an overload and the fuse blew.
2. Why was there an overload?
The bearing was not sufficiently lubricated.
3. Why was it not lubricated sufficiently?
The lubrication pump was not pumping sufficiently.
4. Why was it not pumping sufficiently?
The shaft of the pump was worn and rattling.
5. Why was the shaft worn out?
There was no strainer attached and metal scrap got in.
Repeating why five times, like this, can help uncover the root problem and correct it. If this procedure were not carried through, one might simply replace the fuse or the pump shaft. In that case, the problem would recur within a few months.

From Toyota Production System-Beyond Large-Scale Production, by Taiichi Ohno. English translation copyright ©1988 by Productivity, Inc. Published by Productivity Press, Portland, Ore.