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Lean System

Introduction to the Lean System

As with anything in life, you will get out as much from your ISO 9001 management system as you put into it. If you treat it as a documentation requirement and burden on your business just to get certification then you are unlikely to see any real benefits; in fact, you may even stifle your own growth.

The aim of any ISO 9001 QMS is to enhance your businesses product or service quality by standardizing and continually improving all of your business processes. This in turn will help you to increase productivity and drive out waste of all forms within your business.

Why Use Lean System with ISO 9001?

ISO 9001 outlines what is required for a certifiable QMS. However if you read ISO 9004 you will see that it suggests a huge amount more than 9001 requires as a minimum. Merely aiming for what the standard requires so that you achieve certification is not going to help you actually improve your business in a way that is going to help you grow it.

A QMS should always consider the customer first, not the standard. It should also be put in place to continually improve the business and its output. Something that is also provided through implementing a Lean system.

Lean Manufacturing has grown out of what is known as the Toyota Production System (TPS), and is why Toyota managed to dominate the world automotive market in such a short space of time. Lean is in its simplest form just another QMS; when you implement Lean you put in place the controls and systems to provide the customer exactly what they want, where they want it, when they want it, in the right quantity, without any waste or delays.

Lean provides you with a host of tools such as 5S, which helps you to set up a highly visual, organized and efficient working space, through to continuous improvement techniques such as Kaizen. Lean fits perfectly within any ISO 9001 QMS and can only help you to further improve and grow your business using proven tools and techniques.

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One of the main objectives of an ISO 9001 management system is “continuous improvement”; however, the standard ISO 9001 provides little information on how organizations can reach and maintain it. In this specific aspect is where a lean system will provide the biggest benefit to any quality management system. Lean systems require the implementation of different methodologies that will provide organization with the tools to continuously improve their processes and systems.

Lean manufacturing is characterized for aiming to reduce all the unnecessary in order to use a minimum amount of resources in every aspect of a system, especially on: human effort, manufacturing and storage space, and time.

This tool helps to eliminate all operations that do not add value to products, services and processes, increasing the value of each action and eliminating what is not required. By reducing waste and improving processes, lean manufacturing gives organizations the tool to survive in a global market that demands higher quality, faster delivery and an increase on customer satisfaction.

Some of the most common methodologies used in a lean system are 5S, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), Kanban, Key Performance Indicators (KPI), Shadow boards, Poka-yoke and many others. The implementation of these methodologies can bring many benefits to an ISO 9001 quality management system, such as:

  • Reduction in production costs.
  • Inventory reduction.
  • Reduction on delivery time (lead time).
  • Improved quality.
  • Decrease in labor.
  • Greater  equipment efficiency.
  • Waste reduction.
  • Reduction of overproduction.
  • Decrease on delays.
  • More efficient transport.

The requirements of ISO 9001 have many common aspects with lean production systems, especially in its design and mode of operation, suggesting a high potential for integration.

The integration of both systems will facilitate the implementation of a continuous improvement philosophy based on a systematic elimination of all types of waste, the respect and consideration of all employees and the continuous improvement of productivity and quality. This will enable organizations to reduce costs, improve processes and eliminate waste in order to increase customer satisfaction.

Furthermore, lean systems requires the ability to manage raw materials and components in small batches, which requires supply policies based on stable relationships with suppliers.

There are many organizations that are considering to integrate a lean system into their ISO 9001 management system. This is being done in a pursue to identify and reduce waste from their processes, reach an overall process that flows smoothly and ensure that the organization’s resources are effectively used to meet or exceed customer satisfaction.

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