The Application of Lean to Reduce Inventory, Lead Times and Cost
Course Outline
- Why do Supply Chains matter?
- What issues supply chains can cause. What benefits can accrue from improving your supply chain.
- Simulation 1 – Supply Chain Behaviours
- Review of Simulation 1
- Internal structure and not external events cause system behaviour.
- Lean Principles – a way of addressing internal structure
- Simulation 2 – Application of Lean Principles
- Review of Simulation 2
- Push vs Pull. Single Piece Flow. Applications to wider supply chains, and a possible solution to the Beer Distribution Game
- Improving your Supply Chain
- How to map your Supply Chain
- Developing a vision
- Enablers for delivering improvements
- How to address blockers to improvement
- Supply Chain improvements case studies
Training Notes
A full hardcopy set of the slides and handouts will be given to all delegates who attend the course
Why Lean Supply Chains?
The three key operational metrics of any business venture are Quality, Cost and Delivery. The supply chain is critical in achieving Delivery and Cost targets and can even directly influence Quality.
And no matter how good a company is, its success will depend on its supply chain:
companies don’t compete with each other; supply chains do.
Therefore, having an effective and efficient supply chain that is tailored to a business’ operation is a pre-requisite for long term sustainability and success.
The aim of the course is to:
- Explore the benefits and advantages of improving supply chains – why would a company want to work on their supply chain?
- Identify the barriers to improving supply chains – what would obstruct efforts to improve the supply chain, which may include practical issues, financial costs or penalties, and organisational resistance?
- Understand how a supply chain might be mapped and analysed to identify opportunities
- Identify ways or methodologies for dealing with barriers to improving supply chains
The course is based around exercises/ simulations to help delegates understand how supply chains work and the issues that can arise, how Lean changes the way supply chains are viewed, and open discussions around the bullet points above.
