The Lean manufacturing, PPT Plus,
"Back-to-Basics" e-Training Package 
Lean Manufacturing Solutions

Increase the effectiveness of your
Lean Manufacturing Training Program
Lean Manufacturing Simulation Game 

Objective

Inventory Control is common throughout the supply pipe­line from the supplier to production organizations through to distribution and ultimately to the customer. Our ability to manage and control inventory in that supply pipeline determines our success in satisfying customers and still making a profit.
We will discuss how successful companies make improve­ments in the way they manage and control their inventory. We shall look at specific innovative techniques people use to simplify the process and shorten lead times thereby increasing customer service.

Our objective is to demonstrate various techniques used by companies to help improve their inventory process. This paper will list and discuss important concepts for you to consider when working to improve your operations. Cre­ative examples will be used to demonstrate how others have used these concepts to improve their operations.

Our approach is very basic and fundamental. We will review hands on experiences working with stockroom people and techniques they have used to improve house­keeping, transaction processing and record accuracy.
In addition, we will look at how people work together across company lines to improve the flow of information up and down the supply pipeline. As we move information faster, we can also be more effective in how we move products through that pipeline.

You should leave the presentation with a list of ideas that you can put to use to train and motivate your people to do a more effective job of managing and controlling inventory.

Improvement Process

To help us focus clearly on the improvement process, our effort should be on three main areas: people, places and things. Number one is people are the most important. We must give the people the responsibility to please the customer. To accomplish this, we must vest the people with the authority to make suggestions and implement improvements.

People

How much inventory do you have? In my travels, the overwhelming answer is "too much." Therefore most com­panies are very interested in finding ways to improve the inventory process. After all, that is the real objective of JIT—continuous pursuit of improvement. We believe that success in the continuous pursuit of improvement depends entirely on good people.

The very people we are depending on to help with continu­ous improvement, are most often afraid that JIT will cost them their jobs. We must deal with this issue right up front if we ever expect success.

We need to show that people are still going to be the key to our company's success. We must work with the human interfaces to our system. We must enlist the help of all the people and their ideas need to be considered to move down the road of continuous improvement.

We must focus our attention on the people. The best way to do that is to have a program directed right at training, educating and motivating our people.
Training is the process of instructing people how to do specific tasks. It is most often system specific: how to identify locations, what paperwork indicates what actions, what computer screens input transactions, etc. Most companies understand and fill this need rather well.

Education, on the other hand, is the process of explaining why we do the things we do. We should explain to our people how their actions impact the next step in the process and have an effect throughout the logistics pipeline. Ex­plain how their actions fit into the "big picture" of how our company operates.

One of the most important aspects, however, is motivation. We should include methods to motivate our people to want to do a good job. People have the need to feel important and a part of something that is greater than self. Therefore we should have a program to show the people in our stockroom how important their job really is. Their actions impact the company very significantly.

How well the people work with the inventory process has a direct effect on our ability to please customers. We need to establish a climate of high expectations. Every person is a part of the process of delivering quality products to our customers. Everyone of us has the need to be a part of something important.

As a team, our expectations must be set high. "Perfect quality in the stockroom can be our only acceptable goal," to quote Darrell Dees of Federal Express. So we have to constantly be on the lookout for ways to improve the process.

To be Continued