Modern readers get lean
Bob Trebilcock, Editor-at-Large -- Modern Materials Handling, 12/1/2004
Whether they’re calling it lean, or just good business, the best practices associated with the Toyota way of manufacturing are clearly permeating distribution operations today, according to a recent survey of Modern’s readers. (See below for more information.)
Asked to rate the importance of best practices to current operations, 78% of readers ranked continuous improvement, a key component of lean, as “very important.” When those same readers looked out what best practices they expected to dominate over the next two years, continuous improvement (ranked “very important” by 84% of respondents) and lean inventories (ranked “very important” by 67%) were the most important to our readers warehousing and distribution operations.For those readers involved in manufacturing, continuous improvement (ranked “very important” by 79%) and lean manufacturing programs (ranked “very important” by 70%) topped their list of best practices. But those only tell part of the story. Readers were also looking down the road at other best practices that typify lean, like cross-docking, postponement, and trading partner collaboration for those in the warehouse, and JIT production, just-in-sequence production, trading partner collaboration, and build-to-order in the manufacturing plant.
To read the survey report click here.
To see a video
that also discusses the results, click here. (This archived Webcast is
available through mid-January.)
To purchase the research and/or datatables,
please click here.
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