What are the cornerstones of an ideal lean manufacturing environment? While lean principles were developed in a pre-ERP timeframe, its central tenets map so well to ERP’s strengths that it’s worth reviewing that alignment.

Manufacturing ERP

Achieving Lean Perfection With Manufacturing ERP

Speed, speed, speed. Haste does not make waste in a lean manufacturing environment. Speed is really an outcome of streamlining processes to remove waste. Every business function needs to be accelerated, from procurement, inventory, warehousing, logistics and transportation to distribution. The raw material to cash cycle needs to be compressed. Such acceleration demands automation of the transactions that link these functions into a seamless whole. In the ideal lean environment, ERP functionality should ensure that every transaction is seamlessly integrated and automatically broadcast to areas of the enterprise that need that data. Automating the flow of information enhances efficiency and allows smarter, timelier decision-making.

Connectivity. Automating the flow of information also means letting it flow outside the four walls of the enterprise. To achieve true demand-driven manufacturing, a central lean concept, customers need access to your order entry system and suppliers need to check your inventory of goods they supply. Automated replenishment needs to be driven not by predetermined min/max levels, but by real customer demand.

Collaboration. The extended enterprise includes the vital components of its supply chain, and collaboration with and among partners is a necessity in an ideally lean global network. True collaboration requires the electronically mediated, system-to-system connectivity that enable diverse businesses to communicate seamlessly, automatically and in real time.

Standardization. The Internet has proven the immense utility of standards-based computing. Standards in business transactions, never a necessity before, are emerging and will allow all parties to link systems, share data and automate transactions in a perfect lean utopia. In manufacturing, tools, assembly lines and special processes will see an emergence of standards that will facilitate interoperability, connectivity and collaboration. Technologies such as SOA will enable unprecedented synergies between erp systems.

Systems. Achieving the goal of real-time information flow to every link in the supply chain requires an open architecture that links a company’s enterprise applications with those of its customers and suppliers, a flexible, interoperable and collaborative system that spans the complete extended supply chain. In an ideal lean scenario, such systems will improve visibility and more tightly link supply with demand, and make all nodes in the ecosystem more productive and predictable.

Perfect lean manufacturing is within reach today. Acceleration is taking place. Connectivity is increasing exponentially and software is finding ways to promote collaboration. Technologies such as cloud computing and SOA are pushing standards and protocols that enable systems to work together. The proprietary firewalls that insulated entities from each other are tumbling down in a way that promotes sharing, trust and an efficiency-seeking environment.

Lean manufacturing, from the start, recognized that the most valuable asset of all was information. Now that the flow of that information has been automated, automatically broadcasting it to all systems and partners that can act upon it or base decisions on it, all participants can move ahead confidently, assured that they are completely in the loop and completely empowered to add value any way they can.

Written by :

kristine H