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66 The PCB Magazine • September 2016 To find the efficiencies, Lean manufacturing adopts a customer-value focus, asking, 'What is the customer willing to pay for?' Customers want val- ue, and they'll pay only if you can meet their needs. They shouldn't pay for defects, or for the extra cost of having large inventories. In other words, they shouldn't pay for your waste. Waste is anything that doesn't add value to the end product. There are seven categories of waste that you should monitor: 1. Waiting—How much lag time is there between production steps? 2. Inventory (work in progress)—Are your supply levels and work in progress inventories too high? 3. Transportation—Do you move materials efficiently? 4. Over-processing—Do you work on the product too many times, or otherwise work inefficiently? 5. Motion—Do people and equipment move between tasks efficiently? 6. Defects—How much time do you spend finding and fixing production mistakes? 7. Workforce—Do you use workers efficiently? Steps to Achieve Lean Systems [4] The following steps are from Wikipedia's definition of Lean: Steps should be implemented to create the ideal Lean manufacturing system. • Design a simple manufacturing system • Recognize that there is always room for improvement • Continuously improve the Lean manufacturing system design Design A Simple Manufacturing System A fundamental principle of Lean manufac- turing is demand-based flow manufacturing. In this type of production setting, inventory is only pulled through each production center when it is needed to meet a customer's order. The benefits of this goal include: • Decreased cycle time • Less inventory • Increased productivity • Increased capital equipment utilization There is Always Room for Improvement The core of Lean is founded on the concept of continuous product and process improvement and the elimination of non-value added activi- ties. Use TQC and six sigma principles. The val- ue-adding activities are simply only those things the customer is willing to pay for; everything else is waste, and should be eliminated, simpli- fied, reduced, or integrated. Improving the flow of material through new ideal system layouts at the customer's required rate would reduce waste in material movement and inventory. Continuously Improve A continuous improvement mindset is essential to reach the company's goals. The term "continuous improvement" means incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace func- tionality, customer service, or product performance. Management commitment, education and awareness, total quality control, and design of experiments form the foundations. Zero Defect Manufacturing ZDM is my thermodynamic model of Lean and has four pillars supporting its umbrella of Lean, built upon management commitment, education and awareness, total quality control (TQC), and design of experiments (DOE)/statis- tical process control (SPC), as seen in Figure 1. • Predictive engineering/design for manufacturability (DFM) • Demand pull production (JIT) • Managing design data/computer-aided tooling (CAD to CAM) • Design-flow processes/level schedules (TOC) Just-in-Time (JIT) The "flow" (or smoothness) based approach aims to achieve JIT, by removing the variation caused by work scheduling and thereby provide a driver, rationale or target and priorities for implementation, using a variety of techniques. LEAN MANUFACTURING