Book: Lean Supply Chain Management Essentials: A Framework for Materials Managers

(CRC Press: Boca Raton, FL) -- Presenting an alternate approach to supply chain management, Lean Supply Chain Management Essentials: A Framework for Materials Managers (CRC Press, 2011) explains why the traditional materials planning environment, typically embodied by an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, is an ineffective support system for a company that wants to adopt lean practices. Authors Bill Kerber and Brian Dreckshage begin by defining supply chain management basics, including roles, objectives, and responsibilities, from a traditional framework. Next, they describe lean basics and explore the conflicts between lean and the traditional framework.

The book focuses on the materials management aspects of lean, such as leveling work into the value stream, heijunka scheduling, standard work, and the concept of intervals, including every part every interval (EPEI). By combining traditional materials management tools, such as sales and operations planning (S&OP), with lean manufacturing approaches and applying them to different manufacturing environments, the authors clarify the logic behind why you are doing what you’re doing with lean components and how they fit together as a system. Specifically, they explain how to:
• Determine which leveling strategy to use to smooth production
• Calculate interval to determine lot sizes in various production environments
• Apply lean to purchasing, warehouse, and logistics areas
• Use your value-stream map for green initiatives and risk management
• Replace capacity planning and shop floor control with visual factory, operator balance charts, EPEI, and plan for every part

Illustrating why balancing demand and capacity is better than trying to balance supply and demand, the book includes a definitive chart that matches lean tools to the planning and control charts that have served as the model for ERP systems. It integrates the principles learned from Toyota’s journey of more than 50 years, using lean principles to provide the up-to-date understanding required to approach the application of lean to your supply chain with a methodology that allows for experimentation, learning, and continuous improvement.

Bill Kerber is a principal of High Mix Lean, a lean transformation consulting firm in Medford, New Jersey.

Brian J. Dreckshage is a supply-chain management consultant currently working in Ballwin, Missouri.

Chapters and topics

Lean Basics: Materials management, ERP, five lean principles, areas of waste, Toyota framework, TPS, planning and control, and more

Executive S&OP, Forecasting, and Customer Relationships: Executive sales and operations (S&OP), forecasting, demand patterns, and more

Leveling and Heijunka: Value streams, inventory, scheduling, and more

Dependent Demand Materials: Flow—process, batch, one-piece, first-in-first-out; batch manufacturing; and material planning

Capacity Management and Shop Floor Control: Capacity planning, value-stream loops, shop floor control, and standardized work

Inventory Management: Traditional and lean inventory management

Lot Sizing: One piece, intervals, capacity, variability, and scheduling

Warehousing and Logistics: Control of inventory, packaging, shipping, costs, planning, collaboration, visibility, and reliability

Quality Control:  Lean quality, TQM, visual control, poka-yoke, jidoka, ISO/TS 16949, and seven lean quality tools

Purchasing: Perspective, partnership, quality audits, cost, delivery, and technological capabilities

Lean System:  Summary and conclusions

Appendices: 
• The Myth of the Bell-Shaped Curve: Inventory Level and Customer Service
• The Bullwhip Effect
• Lean Implementation Methodology
• Using Your Value Stream Map for Green Initiatives and Risk Management

About The Author