Lean Manufacturing

Lean manufacturing is a methodology similar to Six Sigma. The difference between Lean and Six Sigma is the tools and the aim of the methodology.
Lean looks to improve the process flow (reduce throughput time) thereby enabling lower inventories and more flexibility.
Six Sigma’s aim is to reduce variation in processes. It’s toolkit contains variation reduction tool along with statistical analysis tools.
Buy a copy of “Lean Thinking” by J Womak for a good overview of lean.
 

“All types of wastes” for Lean are usually identified as:
Scrap, Over-production, Inventory, Motion (people and parts), Processing (i.e. re-work/hidden factories/uneccessary machining), Transport, Waiting.
The parallels between Six Sigma and Lean are pretty obvious – the  hard part (as for Six Sigma) is making sure the changes stay, and the old ways do not creep back.  E.g. when ‘new’ staff appear on the line or contract personnel are brought in.
Regards
James

Fahim,

Nothing I’ll add conflicts with what has been said before.
Think of Lean as a philosophy based both thinking and tools developed by a long line of people and organizations culminating with the Toyota Production System (until the next breathrough).  Think of it as an evolving philosophy, not a bag of tricks or a religion.
Think of Six Sigma as the latest of the tools and thinking which supports the principles of Lean.  There is little or no conflict between the two and their objctives.
Take a look at http://www.lean.org/ (Lean Enterprise Institute) where you’ll find the Lean fraternity having a parallel discussion to the one in this forum.  (If only we could find a way of getting two to do a bit more sharing.) By the way, it was founded by James Womack
Use the Keyword search of this forum to review many of the parallel discusssions on the subjects of LEan and its relationship to Six Sigma (and even terrorism!!!)
Hope this helps.  Have fun.

Fahim,
Here are few useful sites on “Lean”
http://www.lean.org/
https://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c020225a.asp
https://www.isixsigma.com/me/lean_manufacturing/
https://www.isixsigma.com/library/content/c020204a.asp
https://www.isixsigma.com/offsite.asp
A=Fr&Url=http://www.autofieldguide.com/articles/109907.html
http://web.mit.edu/manuf-sys/www/amb.summary.html
This set will make a good reading and give you few ideas, for improvement in your paint manufacture. Plus, have you considered Lean vs Six Sigam.
Ali Askari

Fahim,
Most of this is really good advice. I am not sure if Womack still does it but he used to post the slides from his presentation on his website (lean.org) and he didn’t care if you down loaded them.
A lot of this comes from the Toyota Production System (TPS). Womack write a lot about it as an outsider. Shingo was an insider, somewhat, and his books are worth reading. Monden was also an insider and his book is also worth reading.
It would be a huge mistake to go into this without reading “The Goal” also.
If you are interested in a seminar. IIR (Institute for International Research) will present a conference on “Practicalities of implementing Lean” next month in Chicago. They have a demo by Roy Piciacchia from Lockwood Greene. This is really a first rate demo and can be leased for your own use or they will do it for you (before anyone gets emotional about self promotion I have nothing to do with Lockwood Green other than I have watched the demo a couple times and it always gets good reviews). It is one of the best I have seen and it is fun.
Good Luck.