• Whenever you hear the word 'LEAN' you know it's about 'CUTTING THE FAT' which in the business sense refers to REDUCING AVERAGE COSTS by CUTTING WASTE and INCREASING PRODUCTIVITY.

• Use the above example to create your own slideshow showing the 8 wastes in the context of a school.

Following on to your slides add three more, showing how efficiency and less time wasted could be achieved at your school using the 3 methods identified above.

• "Given the above mentioned eight wastes and ways to improve efficiency how exactly can a business achieve this?"

After watching the video above what can you conclude about pit-stop operations in formula 1 teams over time?

• Let's go and 'LEARN TO BE LEAN TOUR OF THE SCHOOL' Can yo make your own Kaizen suggestion related to your school? Remember its about avoiding waste and improving productivity so if you focus on organistion and/or time saving that would be easier. Download this form and complete. ⬇️DOWNLOAD⬇️

• JUST-IN-TIME refers to an approach to STOCK/INVENTORY-CONTROL that requires that 'NO STOCKS ARE HELD'. In this system MATERIALS ARRIVE JUST AS THEY ARE NEEDED ON THE PRODUCTION LINE and FINISHED GOODS ARE DELIVERED AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE TO THE CUSTOMER.. The goal is to reduce waste, lower storage costs, and improve efficiency by only producing or ordering what is required, when it's required.

• CRADLE TO CRADLE DESIGN (C2C) is a SUSTAINABLE DESIGN PHILOSOPHY that aims to create products and systems that are regenerative, not just less harmful. Instead of a traditional "cradle to grave" model (where a product is used and then discarded), C2C designs products so materials can be reused endlessly—like nature's cycles.

🌱 Key Features of Cradle to Cradle Design:

Material Reuse (Circularity):

Products are made from materials that can be fully recycled, reused, or composted—becoming raw material for new products.

Use of Safe & Healthy Materials:

Non-toxic, biodegradable, and environmentally safe materials are prioritized.

Renewable Energy Use:

The production process uses renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.) to reduce carbon footprint.

Water Stewardship:

Water is treated as a precious resource; systems are designed to clean and reuse water.

Social Fairness:

Ethical labor practices and positive impacts on workers and communities are embedded in the design process.

🌍 Real-World Examples:

Interface Carpets:

They produce modular carpets using recycled materials and take back old tiles for reuse.

Herman Miller (Mirra Chair):

Designed to be 94% recyclable, made using non-toxic materials and disassemblable parts.

Ecover Cleaning Products:

Uses biodegradable ingredients and recyclable packaging made from sugarcane-based plastics.

Nike's Reuse-A-Shoe Program:

Old athletic shoes are ground up and used to create materials for playgrounds and sports courts.

💼 Benefits to Businesses:

Brand Image & Customer Loyalty:

Companies seen as eco-conscious attract environmentally aware consumers and employees.

Cost Savings:

Using recycled materials and designing for reuse can lower raw material costs over time.

Regulatory Advantage:

Staying ahead of environmental laws and standards protects against fines and future compliance costs.

Innovation & Market Differentiation:

Sustainable design opens up new product markets and opportunities for innovation.

Long-Term Resilience:

Reduces dependence on finite resources and builds a more sustainable supply chain.

• What is meant by ‘quality’? A quality product does not necessarily have to be the ‘best possible’.

• Consumer expectations will be very different for goods and services sold at different prices. So we have to make clear from the outset that a quality product does not have to be made with the highest-quality materials to the most exacting standards – but it must meet consumer requirements.

• In certain cases, a product must meet the highest quality standards and the high cost of it becomes almost insignificant. Internal parts for a jet engine used on a passenger plane will be expected to have a failure rate of less than one in one million. However, if fashion clothing was made to the same exacting standards (with regard to stitching, buttons, zips, etc.) how much would a pair of jeans cost then? Designing too much quality into a product that consumers do not expect to last for many years can make the product very expensive and uncompetitive.

• A quality product does not have to be expensive. If low-cost light bulbs and clothes pegs last for several years in normal use, then they have still met consumer expectations and have been of the required quality. So a highly priced good may still be of low quality if it fails to come up to consumer requirements. A cheap good can be considered of good quality if it performs as expected. It should now be clear that quality is a relative concept and not an absolute one – it depends on the product’s price and the expectations of consumers.

• It is easy to think of quality standards in terms of manufactured goods, e.g., the reliability of cars or the wear rate of clothes. However, quality is a crucial issue for service providers too. For example, the quality of service offered by UK banks is claimed to be inferior to those in other countries in terms of:

• time taken to answer the telephone

• no indication of waiting time on the telephone

• queuing time in branches

• contact with the same person on each occasion

• number of accounts errors made

• quality of financial advice given.

The advantages of producing quality products and services are:

• easier to create customer loyalty

• saves on the costs associated with customer complaints, e.g., compensation, replacing defective products and loss of consumer goodwill

• longer life cycles

• less advertising may be necessary as the brand will establish a quality image through the performance of the products

• a higher price (a price premium) could be charged for such goods and services. Quality can, therefore, be profitable.

• Quality-control techniques

• There are three stages to effective quality control:

• 1 Prevention – This is the most effective way of improving quality. If the design of the product follows the requirements of the customer and allows for accurate production, then the other two stages will be less significant. Quality should be ‘designed into’ a product.

• 2 Inspection – Traditionally this has been the most important stage, but it has high costs and these could be reduced by ‘zero-defect’ manufacturing which is the aim of total quality management.

• 3 Correction and improvement – This is not just about

• correcting faulty products, it is also concerned with correcting the process that caused the fault in the first place. This will improve quality in the future.

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• Inspecting for quality Traditionally, quality has been checked by inspecting products at the end of the production process. Some checking might take place at different stages of the process, but the emphasis was on the quality of the finished article. Quality inspection is expensive –

• qualified engineers have to be used – and such checks can involve

• damaging the product, e.g., dropping computers to see if they still

• work afterwards. As a result, a sampling process must be used and

• this cannot guarantee that every product is of the appropriate

• quality. When quality checks are used during the production

• process, then statistical techniques are used to record and

• respond to results.

• Weaknesses of inspecting for quality

• The key point about inspected quality is that it involves a group of

• quality-control inspectors who check the work of workers. There

• are several problems with this approach:

• • It is looking for problems and is, therefore, negative in its

• culture. It can cause resentment among workers, as

• inspectors believe that they have been ‘successful’ when they

• find faults. In addition the workers are likely to look upon the

• inspectors as management employees who are there just to

• check on output and to find problems with the work. Workers

• may consider it satisfying to get a faulty product passed by the

• team of inspectors.

• • The job of inspection can be tedious, so inspectors become

• demotivated and may not carry out their tasks efficiently.

• • If checking takes place only at specific points in the production

• process, then faulty products may pass through several

• production stages before being picked up. This could lead to a

• lot of time being spent finding the source of the fault between

• the quality checkpoints.

• • The main drawback is that it removes workers’ responsibility

• for quality. The inspectors have full authority for checking

• products so the workers will not see quality as their

• responsibility and will not feel that it is part of their task to

• ensure that it is maintained. Ultimately, this lack of

• responsibility is demotivating and will result in lower-quality

• output.

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• Quality assurance has the following claimed advantages over quality-control systems based on final inspection:

• • It makes everyone responsible for quality – this can be a form of job enrichment.

• • Self-checking and making efforts to improve quality increase motivation.

• • The system can be used to ‘trace back’ quality problems to the stage of the production process where a problem might have been occurring.

• • It reduces the need for expensive final inspection and correction or reworking of faulty products.

• A quality circle is a small group of employees (usually 5–10) from the same work area who meet regularly to identify, analyze, and solve work-related problems. The goal is to improve quality, productivity, and the working environment through collaboration and suggestions from the people closest to the process.

• Benchmarking is the process of comparing a business’s processes, performance, or products to the best practices in the industry or to those of leading competitors. The goal is to identify gaps, learn from others, and improve efficiency, quality, and competitiveness.

• "Can a supplier be delayed or even out of stock?"

• "Must the supplier be willing and able to supply any amount at any time?"

• "Can a worker make mistakes and waste precious materials?"

• "Can a worker produce more than is demanded and build up stocks?"

• The answer is no, for JIT to be effective the worker must be multiskilled so that they only make products that are ordered (so no stock-piling) and they get things right the first time, regardless of the task s ono material is wasted.

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• Why skilled workers matter in JIT: If you are going to have no stocks then mistakes that waste materials is very problematic, so when product lines change, workers may need to switch jobs, handle machines, or support different parts of the production line on short notice and with low-skilled workers mistakes will inevitably happen and material will be wasted which is "NO-NO!" for JIT as no backup stock exists, so workers need to get things right the first time, and hence must be multiskilled.

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If JIT ISo work effectively 

• Firstly the Relationships with suppliers have to be excellent. "WHY?"

• Suppliers must be prepared and able to supply at very short notice – short lead time. Suppliers have to see that being reliable and consistent is of great long-term benefit to them as well as the business adopting JIT. This often means that a firm will have only one, or at most two, suppliers for each component, so that a relationship of mutual benefit can be built up.

• Production staff must be multi-skilled and prepared to change jobs at short notice. There is no point in a worker continuing to produce the same item all the time if this leads to stocks building up. Each worker must be able to switch to making different items at very short notice so that no excess supplies of any one product are made. For example, if a worker in a clothing factory usually makes men’s denim jeans, but demand is falling, then the worker should be able to switch to making other garments that are still in demand.

• Equipment and machinery must be flexible. Old-fashioned manufacturing equipment tended to be designed to produce one range of very similar products. It might have taken days to adapt it to making other types of products. This equipment would be most unsuitable for JIT-based systems. The machinery would have to produce large batches of one type of component before being converted to making another item. Stocks of each item produced would be needed to cop e with demand while it was producing other goods. Modern, computer-controlled equipment is much more flexible and adaptable – often able to be changed with no more than a different software program. In this way, very small batches of each item can be produced, which keeps stock levels to an absolute minimum. However, such equipment is expensive and, as a result, JIT may not be so appropriate for small or under-financed firms.

• Accurate demand forecasts will make JIT a much more successful policy. If it is very difficult for a firm to predict likely future sales levels, then keeping zero stocks of materials, parts and finished goods could be a very risky strategy. Demand forecasts can be converted into production schedules that allow calculation of the precise number of components of each type needed over a certain time period.

• The latest IT equipment will allow JIT to be more successful. Accurate data-based records of sales, sales trends, reorder levels and so on will allow very low or zero stocks to be held. Similarly, if contact with suppliers can be set up with the latest electronic data exchanges, then automatic and immediate ordering can take place, when it is recorded that more components will shortly be required.

• Excellent employer–employee relationships are essential for JIT to operate smoothly. Any industrial-relations problem could lead to a break in supplies and the entire production system could grind to a halt. It is no coincidence that many of the businesses that have adopted JIT in Japan and in Europe have a no-strike deal with the major trade unions.

• Quality must be everyone’s priority. As there are no spare stocks to fall back on, it is essential that each component and product must be right first time. Any poor-quality goods that cannot be used will mean that a customer will not receive goods on time. 

• The advantages and disadvantages of JIT are summarised in Table 30.1.