Lean Supply Chain
According to a McKinsey study, the use of Lean Thinking can bring significant benefits to procurement and improve both the capacity and efficiency of the supply chain more in general.
But what is the Lean methodology?
Lean Production is characterized by a set of principles, methods and techniques for the management of business operational processes, with the aim of systematically reducing waste and increasing the value perceived by the customer.
The 5 principles on which it is based are:
- Value
- Mapping
- Flow
- Pull Production
- Perfection
Why is it important to apply the Lean method to Procurement?
Many companies from different industrial sectors have adopted the Lean method in their manufacturing, but have not involved their suppliers and the entire supply chain in this improvement and efficiency process.
However, the implementation of Lean principles in production brings to light the shortcomings and critical issues of Supply Chain Collaboration, which result in a clear dissatisfaction towards suppliers and their performance.
This is without considering that these evident critical issues also involve a concrete difficulty for the company to achieve its quality improvement, service levels, and cost reduction targets, and therefore the competitiveness that the market and the end customer require.
This is a frequent mistake that many companies continue to make, even though they often are already aware of just how critical the management and integration of suppliers is within an evolutionary path of excellence of their logistics-production system.
Lean Supply Chain: integration
It is therefore a good idea to implement a real integration programme that takes into account suppliers and supply chain processes, in order to achieve fully-rounded levels of excellence.
To know better the principles on which Lean Production is based and which steps to follow to apply it to the Supply Chain, please fill in the form below and download the complete document.