How to apply Lean principles to Supply Chain Management

At present, Lean is a very popular concept. As you know, Lean is used for optimizing quality, reducing unwanted stepsand maximizing customer value. Just in Time and Jidoka are the two main principles of Lean.

As the biggest objectives of supply chain management are to minimize costs and enhance customer service, Lean principles can help in achieving these objectives. Let’s take a look at five Lean tools which can help in supply chain planning.

·         Just in Time (JIT): This tool makes sure that the consumers get only those goods and services which they want, at their preferred time and in their preferred quantity. Thus, these goals of JIT are quite similar to those of supply chain management. 

·         Kaizen: Kaizen or continuous improvement refers to continuously improving each and every area of the process. This policy is applicable at all levels of the organization and can be applied to any task. If you do things more accurately, efficiently and effectively, this reduces waste considerably and is a value addition to supply chain management.

·         Value Stream Mapping: This includes mapping of all the process steps along with each step’s timing, flow and wait times for all related activities. You can identify and eliminate waste with the help of this tool. Thus, mapping out all the activities in Supply Chain Management will help in connecting all of them, understanding them better and eliminating the unwanted ones.

·         The Five Whys: As the name suggest, it’s a way of asking questions. Asking questions leads to a better understanding and weaves a path to solve problems. Hence, this tool should be applied to Supply Chain Management to determine why something happened. This results in the ability to anticipate and respond in an optimum way.

·         5S: Last but not the least, 5S stands for Sort, Straighten, Standardize, Shine and Sustain. The 5S organize all the areas of the organization. Sort process helps in identifying and eliminating unnecessary tools. Straighten allows to maintain everything in order for easy accessibility. Shine keeps the workplace clean and hygienic. Standardizing helps in making a habit of the earlier three steps.Sustain refers to maintaining that all steps and functions follow the established procedures. All these concepts can be similarly used for supply chain management.

Thus, as you can see lean principles can definitely be applied to Supply Chain Management and to know more about this, you can always enroll at IACT Global for acquiring a certification in Supply Chain Management. IACT Global enables you to pursue the course at your own pace anywhere and anytime. So, just join IACT Global and have an enriched career.