Bloomberg.com: Bloomberg Columnists: Doron Levin
Another good column by Doron Levin. “Overproduction” is considered to be one of the “8 Types of Waste”. It is also considered to be the “worst” type of waste by Toyota Production System practioners because overproduction (producing more than the market requires over a time frame) leads to all the other types of waste:
- Defects
- Overproduction
- Transportation
- Waiting
- Inventory
- Motion
- Unnecessary processing
- Not fully utilizing people's talent
Congrats to Doron for using the word “heijunka” (the concept of leveling production). It's overproduction to build large batches, because you might build a month's worth of product in three days, which leads to other types of waste. Or, if you're doing like GM, you're consistently building more cars than the market demands, which is leading to many forms of waste and pain.
Mark Graban
Mark Graban is an internationally-recognized consultant, author, and professional speaker who has worked in healthcare, manufacturing, and startups. His latest book is Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More. He is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, as well as The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen. He also published the anthology Practicing Lean that benefits the Louise H. Batz Patient Safety Foundation, where Mark is a board member. Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.
Interesting that he mentions creating “realistic forecasts of demand”…
The one thing we know about forecasting is it will never be accurate, so why not build to market demand instead guessing?
Even for a “build to order” company like Dell Computer, they still need forecasts for supplier planning, etc.