Lean Manufacturing

This isnt exactly answering your question, but, when I was managing the bodyshop at the Porsche/Audi/VW dealer, they sent me to a lean seminar. Turns out, we already had quite a few of the suggested MO's in place, because they seemed common sense. To fully implement a true "lean" program seems rather extreme though. Implementing what you can, combined with established SOP's that work in your shop, should make for more consistent operations and less supervision of your employees.

 

We use lean techniques (Kaizen) to reduce non-value added waste in our business.
The greatest improvements we have seen (so far) have been in reducing NVA waste in our processes, batch size reduction and moving closer to single piece flow.
I totally buy into and understand the value of the TPS in both manufacturing and non-manufacturing businesses (and even your daily personal activities.)
Todd