Question

Sally Kanina is truly a hands' off owner of Awesome Cakes. She trusts her manager, William to make the hard decisions that keep the business operating efficiently and effectively. So far things have been going really well and she has been pleased with the profitability of the company. One day Sally decided to do some reading and research, thinking it was time to add some of her magic to the company that she had founded to help take it to the next level of Awesomeness. She read about inventory management, lean, market expansion, you name it she read about it. The problem was that she didn't read very deeply and thought that she could just go talk to William and get him to make lots of changes in how the company operated. Your job is to help William respond to Sally's great ideas and surprising interest 1. Lean Manufacturing (8 marks) Sally read about this thing called “Lean” and thought it sounded fantastic. She asked William to look into implementing Lean. William was familiar with Lean and didn't think that Sally really understood what was involved so he needs a brief overview of what Lean involves to help Sally understand that implementing Lean is not a small project. Include in the overview: a. A brief definition of Lean. b. What kind of organizations are best suited to implement lean? Is it suitable for Awesome Cakes? c. Name and describe two important components of lean that need to be implemented for success.

Answer 1

Answer a= A lean process can be defined as the different methods that are used for the creation of effective business practices by overcoming the different types of wasteful practices and having improved efficiency. The main focus of this process remains on developing and improving the products that are demanded by the customers and to create added value to the customers.

Answer b= The organizations which can have a regular monitoring and upgrading system can implement the lean process effectively in the organization. It is important for the organizations to keep looking for the different areas of improvement, removing wastages, and providing greater values to the customers.

Yes, as the management of the organization is ready to take the hard decision and make the organization efficient and effective, thus the concept of lean can be implemented in it.

Answer C= Elimination of wastages= This is the most important aspect of the lean process. The organization has to keep looking for the various areas that can result in wasteful activities and the firm must try to overcome those wastages

Flexible resources= As the lean focuses on providing greater values to the customers, thus the lean organization must have flexible resources so that the demand and customer requirements can be addressed