Operations management

Table of Contents

1. Topic pack - Operations management - introduction
2. Operations Management (OM) - Introduction
3. 5.1 Production methods notes
4. 5.1 Production methods - questions
5. 5.2 Costs and revenues - notes
6. 5.2 Costs and revenues - questions
7. 5.3 Break-even analysis - notes
8. 5.3 Break-even analysis - questions
9. 5.3 Break-even analysis - simulations and activities
10. 5.4 Quality assurance - notes
    1. Quality control and assurance
    2. The customer, the customer and the customer
    3. Case study - quality through your customer's eyes
    4. Case study - Portakabin
    5. Operations management and quality
    6. Quality control and quality assurance
    7. Classic quality control (QC)
    8. Quality Assurance (QA)
    9. Total quality culture (TQC)
    10. Total Quality Management (TQM)
    11. TQM planning process
    12. Case study - Six sigma
    13. Lean Production
    14. Continuous improvement
    15. Benchmarking
    16. Case study - Strategy: Benchmarking
    17. Case study - Cadillac benchmarks BMW
    18. Task - Benchmarking report
11. 5.4 Quality assurance - questions and activities
12. 5.5 Location - notes
13. Innovation - notes (HL only)
14. 5.6 Innovation - questions
15. 5.7 Production planning - notes
16. 5.7 Production planning - questions
17. 5.8 Project management - notes (HL only)
18. 5.8 Project management - questions (HL only)
19. Print View

Lean Production

Lean Production originates from the production established by Toyota in Japan in the early 1950's that became known as 'The Toyota Production System'.

Lean production is a philosophy that aims to produce more, using fewer resources, eliminating all forms of waste.

The components of lean production are:

• Just-in-time manufacture (JIT)
• Total quality management (TQM)
• Time-based management

Lean production came out of a three-month visit by Toyota managers to the Ford River Rouge plant in the 1950s. Here they studied mass production and concluded:

• Mass production was riddled with waste ('muda')
• The standardisation required was unacceptable to customers
• Quality was poor with a high reject rate at the end of the production line

Toyota's solution was to design machines that were flexible, adapted to several processes. Lines could be quickly altered to manufacture different products, e.g. left to right hand drive vehicles. The emphasis was on reducing the use of all resources: raw materials, manpower, capital, floor space and time.

In the 1980s, there was a significant increase in the application of lean production techniques in US and European firms and the term was popularised by MIT researchers, J. P. Womack and D. T. Jones, in their book 'The Machine that Changed the World', based on their five-year, fourteen-country International Motor Vehicle Program's study of the worldwide auto industry.

Lean Production combines the advantages of both craft and mass production, but with the goal is to use less of everything compared with mass production. Lean production aims to:

'get the right things to the right place at the right time, the first time, while minimising waste and being open to change'.

Lean Production focused on reducing system response time so that the production system can adapting quickly to market demands, effectively meaning products become virtually made-to-order.

Follow the link below if you would prefer to view this interaction in a new web window:

• Lean production

Quality improvement

Quality is not static and firms need to ensure that their quality improves with the demands of the customer and the market. Quality is both a company absolute value and an industry/market relative value (one firm compared to another).