In their article, “Safety & Lean: One manufacturer’s lessons learned and best practices”, Hallowell, Veltri, and Johnson consider the issue of safe and lean manufacture. They also provide steps on how to make work environment safer and production more effective and efficient.
The number of organizations that begin to implement lean production strategies is rapidly growing. Shifting from the traditional mass production to the lean production is a difficult process that requires a lot of changes to be made in production methods, site layout and staff activities (Hallowell, Veltri, & Johnson, 2009). For the last several years, the SH&E specialists have begun to consider the concept of lean production. Although some industries have already put this concept into practice, the SH&E have only recently understood its strategic benefit. Thus, they are not quite prepared to switch from traditional to lean production (Hallowell et al., 2009).
The authors mention that the lean production strategy was first introduced by Toyota Company in the 1980s and was referred to as Toyota Production System. The initial goal of this strategy was to make production more reliable, qualitative and versatile (Hallowell et al., 2009).
After Toyota’s innovation, several other industries began to implement this new strategy. In more recent years, such industries as shipbuilding and construction have used this method to reduce waste. They have tried to use less manpower, space, materials, and devices that they have used in production and, at the same time, meet all production requirements, quality, budget and time. A lot of organizations noticed the enhancement of business performance after the shift from traditional methods of production to lean methods of production. According to the statistics, organizations which have used techniques of lean production have managed to reduce waste, inventory and rework. Along with a rapidly increasing number of organizations which implement lean methods of production, more books on this topic are written. Special terms in the sphere of lean production are abundant, and several cases of misinterpretation have taken place (Hallowell et al., 2009).
Further on, the authors distinguish five most prominent methods that determine the lean production: shift to a push-pull system, leveling of production, normalization, automation and just-in-time inventory. The SH&E specialists must play a crucial role in the implementation of new methods to avoid accidents in a hazardous work environment. Otherwise, companies will have to spend much more resources to remove different hazards in the process of work (Hallowell et al., 2009).
This article is mostly intended for people who run businesses in manufacture. It helps them understand what benefits the implementation of lean production will bring to them and how the SH&E specialists should operate to reduce waste. In general, the authors’ main point is to show the difference between traditional mass production methods and lean production methods stressing on the advantages of the latter over the former. They provide several examples of practical experience and tips for the SH&E professionals on how to understand the process of lean production quickly and use it.
The authors also expand on their main points and describe each of the five main strategies of lean production in detail specifying opportunities that each of them provides to an organization and obstacles that can appear in the process of their implementation based on the experience of organizations that have already done it (Hallowell et al., 2009). However, the authors could add more information about the history of lean production, particularly how it had appeared and developed in different countries before it became a well-known and clearly more efficient type of production.
In conclusion, the authors specify that the main purpose of lean production is to reduce waste, as it makes business less efficient. Working in hazardous environments requires special methods in order to avoid incidents, and the SH&E specialists have to learn lean production strategies to make worksites safer (Hallowell et al., 2009).
Reference
Hallowell, M. R., Veltri, A., & Johnson, S. (2009). Safety & lean: One manufacturer’s lessons learned and best practices. Journal of the American Society of Safety Engineers, 54(11), 22-27.