Lean Manufacturing: A Case Study of a Sri Lankan Manufacturing Organization

Abstract

Toyota Production System (TPS) is a buzzword today in manufacturing circles. It is known as a flexi and cost-effective production model all over the world. TPS was conceptualized by Taiichi Ohno at Toyota Motor Company in 1950s (Motwani, 2003). In fact, TPS is the result of a series of best practices, which have been tested at Toyota Motor Corporation over the several decades. The goal of implementing TPS in an organization « •. .is to increase productivity, reduce lead-times and costs, improve quality, etc." (Sriparavastu and Gupta, 1997; Sanchez and Perez, 2001). Kasul and Motwani (1997) in their study find that companies that employ TPS have benefits such as "reduced lead times, just-in-time management, decreased costs, levelled production, continuous flow production, increased job satisfaction for employees, higher productivity, lower inventories, and higher quality levels." Japanese companies have been able to successfully implement this system and hence been able to reduce the time for turnaround from when the customer orders to delivery and cash received. This reduction in time has helped companies through tough times and helped in maintaining their profitability.