Mark Graban

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Lean Software

Mark Graban, LFM ’99, Gives Webcast Lecture on Lean Manufacturing Software

By Monica Nakamine
October 1, 2003

Lean manufacturing is a set of common practices, tools, and methods that is applied to processes within a manufacturing environment to help make it more efficient. But the road to lean isn’t always smooth. So tools, such as lean software, have been developed to help streamline lean implementation. In recent years, this software has been used to integrate, automate, and standardize operations of factories and plants, particularly in the automotive and aerospace industries. LFM-SDM hosted a webcast presentation on September 5, 2003, which focused on this trend. The presenter was Mark Graban, LFM ’99 and Senior Consultant of Professional Services at Factory Logic, a lean manufacturing software developer.

“Lean software works in an integrative way with existing systems, such as ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning),” said Graban. “Its main benefits allow for integration into an ERP-based system, provide people with the opportunity to focus on improvement rather than waste time on the mundane, and standardize common processes within and between factories.”

Graban gave a brief overview of lean manufacturing, as first conceived by Toyota in the late 1940s to early 1950s in Japan before discussing modern applications. He noted that about 20 years later, lean manufacturing, also coined as the “Toyota Production System” (TPS), finally caught on in the United States, but industrialists could not see the relevance of a software application for a lean manufacturing operation.

“Books and practices on lean manufacturing reached the U.S. in the late 1970s, which mentioned the incompatibility to lean methods,” said Graban. “But I’d like to think that that was based on the software that was available at the time, namely Material Resource Planning (or MRP).”

ERP, systems emerged right around the time that lean manufacturing came to the western world – a period that Graban calls the “ERP revolution.” ERP is based primarily on financial practices and requirements and is focused on achieving a standardized enterprise backbone, yet it did not strive for or attempt to incorporate a lean manufacturing mentality. According to Graban, ERP adapted and improved upon existing approaches, namely, the MRP system, which was designed around the push, “batch and queue,” mentality and was process-focused instead of flow-oriented.

To fill the gaps that resulted from an ERP-driven environment, factories invented their own solutions for production leveling and kanban calculations, using manual processes and customized Excel spreadsheets, thereby creating opportunities for inconsistencies. Often, ERP and lean co-existed, however, inharmoniously.

Lean software, as Graban pointed out, can solve these issues by incorporating a process of balancing (between cycle time, number of operators, demand, and factory calendar), evaluation of staffing needs across cells, and consideration of tradeoffs (among staffing, overtime, inventory, and changeovers). Manual labor and numerous spreadsheets could eventually be eliminated with the use of lean software. However, Graban said, lean software by itself is not going to increase the level of a plant’s efficiency.

“Software alone is not going make your plant lean,” said Graban. “Systems or lean software is going to be one part of your management system, supporting your success on the ‘journey to lean.’ Lean transformation also requires cultural changes; better management practices; motivation, dedication, and perseverance; shop floor consulting and changes; and factory redesign and physical lean set-up.”

The main users of lean software are typically master schedulers, material planners, lean manufacturing engineers and managers, plant management, supply chain management. User benefits will include: