solutions for lean manufacturing

Leveraging Lean Manufacturing to Become More Customer-Focused

Competitive necessities are driving manufacturers to become more customer-focused, and lean manufacturing techniques are a powerful tool to support these supply chain management (SCM) transformations. The focus of lean manufacturing is execution-the actual transformation of materials into a product that is valued by customers. Without the proper tools, constant changes in supply, demand and products are difficult to manage, impossible to predict, and can trigger steady margin erosion and market share loss. To effectively respond to these inevitable changes, supply chain visibility and supply chain collaboration are becoming critical for lean manufacturing success.

Response Management—Rapid Response to Change Supports Lean Manufacturing

Enter Response Management. Response Management supports lean six sigma initiatives by allowing manufacturers to rapidly respond to real-world volatilities. Kinaxis™ RapidResponse™, an on-demand Response Management service, is making lean manufacturing easier and faster to implement by providing organizations with tools to effectively respond to changing business conditions. By integrating customers, manufacturers and suppliers in an enterprise-wide responsive supply chain, Kinaxis RapidResponse helps to create a performance management infrastructure that enables lean six sigma efforts operate smoothly.

With the correct methodologies in place and the right Response Management tools, lean manufacturing can minimize inventory and waste, shorten lead times, and consistently deliver on promise dates. To learn more about how Kinaxis Response Management solutions enable lean manufacturing success, listen to the Better Process Podcast or download the white paper Reaping the Rewards of Lean Through Response Management.

Kinaxis RapidResponse Delivers the Benefits of Lean

Lean manufacturing is a philosophy, not a tool. To be successful, a company must adopt lean six sigma philosophies first and then use supply chain management tools to implement it. Kinaxis RapidResponse delivers the Response Management capabilities that accelerate the adoption of lean processes throughout manufacturing organizations.

“Lean and RapidResponse are highly complementary because Lean is focused on improving flexibility through the elimination of waste, and RapidResponse is focused on quantifying the flexibility so that one can rapidly evaluate the true capability of the system to respond to a specific change. RapidResponse combined with the workflows and processes that we have designed, enables us to improve our delivery flexibility and reliability, thus helping our customers to compete more effectively in their marketplaces.”

Kevin Sachs, vice president, worldwide account operations management, Solectron (now Flextronics)

To hear more about Solectron's (now Flextronics) manufacturing operations and the role of RapidResponse, watch the webcast "Visibility is key to confidence in the relationships between OEMs and their CMs."

The Rewards of Lean

To find out how your Lean Manufacturing environment can benefit from Kinaxis RapidResponse, read our white paper Lean Manufacturing: Reaping the Rewards of Lean Through Response Management