Lean Manufacturing Certification and Training Alternatives

Lean Manufacturing Training is occurring in many companies all over the world. There are many forms, including live seminars, online courses, and distance learning training.

The benefits of any course is to learn all of the concepts to see how they tie together and integrate to for a “lean manufacturing implementation". If a course does not provide in depth learning for all of the major concepts it will leave a void in the implementation in the office or factory.

The major concepts are 5S, value stream mapping, TPM (total productive maintenance), standard operations, line balance, pull systems, SMED (single minute exchange of die), kaizen, OEE (overall equipment effectiveness), visual management, error proofing, and quality at the source. There are other concepts but these few work together in almost every implementation to reduce system waste.

It is not necessary to take any course to learn the concepts of lean manufacturing or implement the principles. There are many good books on the subject. In addition, every concept can be learned in depth online at no cost.

For some companies, it makes sense to provide lean manufacturing certification training for one or two people which will lead the implementation.

Lean manufacturing is not a difficult subject. It is a collection of fairly simple concepts that often work together to reduce the waste in a company. For example, value stream mapping helps determine the waste of motion, transportation, and inventory. It also highlights bottlenecks from long setup times or line imbalances. The SMED and TPM techniques and pull systems can be utilized to eliminate some of these bottlenecks.

The difficult part of lean manufacturing is the implementation itself. For example, if everyone isn't on the same page with the same goals and vision, the bottlenecks might get worse. Suppose the implementation takes a shotgun approach and every department sets out to reduce setup time. The machine preceding of an inventory bottleneck might reduce setup time making the work in process inventory an even larger problem, increasing waste processing, handling, and damage, and making quality at the source an impossibility.

The greatest impediment to the lean manufacturing training and implementation is management commitment. It's difficult for management to make a sustained commitment if the corporation is always focused on short term results. For example, when a production line is rebalanced, it often produces less per man hour for a short period of time until the new crew has worked together for a period of time. There are also instances where a lower output per man hour actually makes sense, especially when takt time demands it.

While it may be difficult for some companies to begin a lean manufacturing implementation without formal training, attending an “overview" course or one with a focus on one concept such as 5S is not very cost effective. 5S is extremely simple to learn but impossible to sustain in some environments. The basic concept is to organize the workplace and keep the equipment operating as “new" condition. This simply is not possible if the workers and maintenance aren't given the time to maintain the condition. Workers are often blamed, but management is almost always the reason for the failure.

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