Faced by waste and operational variability, food services operators are taking up from industrial manufactures by relating lean production methods to their peculiar processes. Lean performances seek to recover merchandise and amenity excellence while concurrently sinking waste and work costs. For nourishment amenity, operatives, the supplementary trick is to interweave such efforts as to create customer loyalty. For one producer, efforts to create consumer loyalty means handling unpredictable demand, excessive errors rates, and time the consumer spends waiting. The operator mapped his changes in demand to highlight fluctuations, introduce a self-service counter, and redesign the kitchen and food preparation procedures to standardize food making and eliminate waste, which consequently fell by 40%. These efforts also led to labor cost dropping by 15% and service time improved by one third. Meanwhile, sales upsurge by 5% since the employee could spend more time influencing customers and less time apologizing to them. The overall argument is, despite that lean thinking was originally used in car manufacturing industries, it has also been very effective in the food industries.
Wastage has been believed to be caused by several factors among them being overproduction. Producing too much or too soon in the food industry result into poor flow of information or goods and surplus inventory. Inappropriate processing is another factor which includes use of wrong procedures in preparing food or use of the wrong tools. The system of processing need not be complicated when there is a simpler approach which of course will minimize wastage. Waiting caused by long periods of inactivity for employees, information, or processing process result to poor flow and long lead times. Unnecessary motions in workplace result from poor workplace organization and eventually lead to poor ergonomics, and frequent misplaced items.
Process activity mapping is a tool used to categorize lead time and output opportunities for both bodily product flows and info flows in the factory as well as in the supply chains. The stages of the production process at which data can be collected are identified; the first stage is usually the actual demands made by customers. Succeeding stages are at major production stages or cells. Inventory and batch size data is collected at and after each inventory location. The time period for analysis should decide and present the normal operational situation.
Value analysis time profile is a time centered value scrutiny tool allows for the plot of both total cost and value of the product as it proceeds along the supply chain under consideration. The difference between the total cost line and value adding line represent the cost of waste. The capacity underneath the overall cost line signifies the total amount of money tied up to a unit of the inventory. This tool is remarkably useful to follow time compression or mapping where money is being wasted.
The objective of the supplier would be to improve harvesting effectiveness, improving quality, reducing waste through better feedback of the manufactured goods performance, studying product stipulations, partaking best practice. Suppliers are also obliged to develop capabilities and skills of suppliers through training and use of appropriate continuous improvement methods.
Value, in the framework of lean, is definite as something that the consumer is eager to wage. Value-adding doings alter supplies and info into something a client needs. Non-value-adding doings use up resources and don’t openly add to the finale result preferred by the customer. Waste, therefore, is demarcated as whatever that does not contribute value from the consumer’s viewpoint. Examples of practice wastes are faulty foodstuffs, overproduction, registers, excess gesture, dispensation steps, conveyance, and waiting.
The following are the chain supply issues;
- Lean Attaining, the vital issues in lean obtainment are discernibility. Suppliers must be capable to define their client’s maneuvers and consumers must be intelligent enough to identify suppliers ‘setups. Establishments must map the contemporary value stream, and laid-back generate a forthcoming value stream in the obtaining progress. They ought to generate a movement of information while launching a collection of info and foodstuffs.
- Lean industrial systems crop what the consumer desires, in the amount the consumer needs, when the client desires the product, and using the least resources. Lean exertions characteristically jolt in manufacturing since they free resources for unceasing upgrading in other parts, and generate a pull on the rest of the business. Relating lean notions to manufacturing presents the utmost chance for cost lessening and excellence upgrading; however, remarkable corporations have received huge benefits from lean concepts in other functions.
- Lean storage strategy, which include means, excluding non-profit adding stages and waste product storage processes. The fundamental warehousing functions are reception, storage, refill, selection, stuffing, and shipping. Every step in the warehousing course should be inspected disapprovingly to evaluate instances that needless, monotonous, and non-profit actions may occur so that they may be eradicated.
- Lean consumers recognize their commercial needs and consequently can stipulate significant desires. They value promptness and elasticity and anticipate excellent standards of distribution enactment and quality. Lean consumers are concerned in founding effective conglomerates—continuously searching for approaches of unremitting development in the entire distribution chain to lessen operational cost. Lean consumers anticipate significance from the merchandises they buy and deliver value to clients who they intermingle with.
This study shows that lean concept is appropriate for food companies. The lean production gives tools for Food Company to analyze and eradicate unnecessary inventories and other forms of waste along the supply chain.
References
Dudbridge, M. (2011). Handbook of Lean Manufacturing in the Food Industry. New York: John Wiley & Sons.
Womack, J. P., & Jones, D. T. (2003). Lean thinking: banish waste and create wealth in your corporation. New York: Free Press.
