Lean manufacturing would require that certain principles are to be understood and then followed diligently. Firstly, it is important to understand the customer. What this means is to understand exactly what the customer wants and what will be able to add value to a customer.

Next step is to identify the various processes or activities required to be undertaken that will be able to provide the required product or service to the customer. Once this has been done, it will help to eliminate the various activities that are simply wasteful or which do not add any value to the customer. Then such wasteful processes are to be reduced or if possible, even eliminated from the system.

A lean blog discusses the various aspects of being lean. Lean management does not apply to processes only. It is people focused too. At times, employees tend to spend much more time and effort than required for a specific job or task. This can be termed as waste. This is something that needs to be handled with care. The aim is not to get an inferior quality product or bad service. Thus it requires apt communication. Also, it should not lower the morale of the employee. The aim is just to get a good quality product with lesser resources.

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To begin with, the lean management helps workers save a lot of time. Take the example of a worker who works in an assembly line. Assume that they use two sockets in their daily work. Take that each socket develops problems thrice a day. If the time used to repair one socket is ten minutes, then the worker could save a lot of time by using only one socket. Many people have reported on lean blogs that implementing the lean management has saved a lot of their time.

Another advantage of lean manufacturing is that it helps the company enhance the quality of its products. The time and spaces as well as the resources that you use where not necessarily can be instead be used improve the quality of the final products. This way, the defect rate is reduced and the quality of the products is greatly increased.

Another distinctive advantage of lean management system is that it saves time. The lean management saves money in two major ways. The first one comes about because resources can be saved. As such, the company does not need to buy many. Both time and resources spent on waste can be constructively used to improve quality of products and thus fetch better profits.

Another striking advantage of lean manufacturers is that they do not rest on their laurels; they are always endeavoring to better their condition. To them the sky is no longer the limit. In fact, there are simply no limits. They are ever in competition against others and themselves! Their goal is to simply be second to none.

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The first principle is lean design which involves assessing and improvement on production methods in order to efficiently adapt to changing the business environment. Most lean blogs applaud the use of computer-aided design as a flexible and fast way of transferring production ideas from design concepts to the market. Lean management, on the other hand, involves people management strategies that attempt to ensure full training of all workers involved in production methods. Empowerment and delegation form the pillar of lean people management. This not only motivates workers but makes them feel valued and important to business objectives.

The third strategy in lean production is known as lean component supply. This is a system that deals with various aspects of stock management. It deals with when restocking, storage, insurance and opportunity costs involved. It emphasizes the need to recognize necessary conditions of supply such as identifying reliable suppliers who can supply and deliver stock on time. Lean quality is the final principle used in lean management. An organization can incur great losses, bad publicity and loss of customers when it ignores production quality. One way of ensuring quality in an organization is training employees in all aspects of lean manufacturing. All employees are trained in multi-skills and quality techniques such as quality circles and kaizen groups. This is a proven way of bringing the best ideas from employees.

In conclusion, it is worthy noting that lean manufacturing is expensive; it has high initial costs and therefore, cannot be applied in every manufacturing company. It also takes a long time for employees to adapt, a period within which many economies of scale pros are lost.

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Strategic planning is absolutely vital to running a successful business, without the right amount of planning in place the business will crumble. Hoshin Kanri is one of the methods that has been created to help companies achieve the goals that they have set themselves. It was invented in the 1950’s in Japan by Professor Kaoru Ishikawa. The fundamental principle is Hoshin Kanri is to acknowledge that everybody that works for a company is an expert in their field; it is the collective knowledge of everybody that helps makes the company what it is. It really does help the individuals in the company feel like a true individual as opposed to somebody that really has no input. Top companies that currently utilize this method include Bank of America, Dell, Hewlett Packard and Nissan. Let’s take a little bit of more in depth look at this management method.

The idea of Hoshin Kanri is that everybody focuses on a shared goal. This philosophy is evident from the name, Hoshin means compass and Kanri means management, which obviously shows that everybody is heading in the same direction. For any success to be had the goal has to be communicated to all the leaders of the company, each person plays their own part in the big master plan.

This method works well for companies as it has everybody working towards the same goals and when everybody does this together you are much more likely to achieve what you want to do.

The process is a fairly long winded one. It involves identification of key business issues and the creation of objectives in order to put these issues right. Strategies are then planned out which are paramount to achieving these goals, objectives will need to be placed into each strategy as well as the means of measuring the success of each of them.

Throughout the Hoshin process there are a number of times in which performance will need to come under review.  There are a number of standardized tables which are needed for review and this is quite often carried out by the managers. These reviews will often include the following:

1. The Scope of the Plan
2. The Objective of the Plan, i.e. what the company is setting out to achieve.
3. Milestones that measure when each objective has been achieved.
4. The outlines of strategies that will help the department achieve the objectives that have been set out to them.
5. A check on whether strategies are being achieved or not.

There are also a number of other supporting tables which are used to support the Hoshin Kanri process. This includes a strategy implementation table, business fundamentals table and an annual planning table. In order to achieve the objectives set out there must be communication between each level in the table. The Annual Planning Table will form the basis of the objectives for the next year.

It is important that objectives are constantly monitored to ensure that they are reached. If the Hoshin Kanri plan is put into action properly then you are well on your way to ensuring that your company is working in tangent to achieve the objectives together.

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There are 7 important steps involved in the hoshin planning process. The first involves the identification of important issues faced by the company/business. The second involves the establishment of objectives to address the issues. In the third step is where the company defines its overall goals. In step four, strategies are developed to support the goals formulated in step 3. Step five is concerned with the definition of sub goals that support the strategies developed in step 4. In step six, indicators or metrics for measuring the performance of the process are established. The establishment of business fundamental measures is carried out as the final step. It is important to note that only the top management is allowed to handle/deal with the first three processes.

Thus, the Hoshin planning process is a strategic planning/management methodology that is used for defining the key objectives of a company or organization. It is also used to ensure the implementation of business fundamentals necessary to effectively run a business on a day to day basis. It is intended to help a company/organization focus on shared goals to avoid wasting resources and communicate goals to all leaders in order to utilize and magnify the collective knowledge. It is also intended to assist an organization hold participants accountable for achieving their part of the over all plan and create an organization that is accountable. It is worth noting that in this management system/process, employees at all levels of the organization take part.

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Hoshin Planning is a method used at the top management level to identify the ability to achieve the target, which is known as key performance indicators (KPIs). Hoshin Planning then identifies or sets the focus towards a few important priorities of the organization, which will help the organization to be stable in the market. These important priorities are known as Hoshins. In Hoshin planning we take a few priorities at a time. The Management will set targets and policies so that the individual gets a clear picture of the overall performance required for him to achieve. As we move down towards the organizational hierarchy. After the management, the managers of each department will help in defining their goals and annual target for the employees. And so on is carried forward toward the lowest level of organization. This helps everyone to achieve their target for that annual year. Hoshin Planning not only helps planning but also after the planning is done; it also keeps the documentation of what has to be achieved. It also keeps a track to see if it acted every day by everyone.

Hoshin Kanri is a planning process, which is used to assess and check if the objective or the goals and target set by the management are progressed on a daily basis. Hoshin Kanri provides the management a clear picture of the goals or targets which were set and which are achieved at that particular point.

Honshin will focus on achieving its targets and fulfilling customer's needs in the market, basically by keeping their product in demand in the market. They will also listen to the customers' demands and try to fulfill them so as to satisfy the customers' needs.

Honshin will also keep focusing on the environment so as not to damage the environment and help the environment to keep clean and not damage the environment.

It also focuses on improvements to the organization.

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The hoshin kanri is an established technique formulated to attain and reinforce tactical goals in addition to displaying future insights and developing the resources to these into actuality. The hoshin planning method was based on a theory that originated in Japan. In essence hoshin kanri is utilized to convey the company's policy to every employee in the organization.

The underlying principle of hoshin is to use the combined thoughts of each employee to make their company the best in their area of expertise. Generally hoshin blends in long and short term planning processes with objective and quality management techniques to produce a course of action series. Plainly hoshin kanri is a system of structures and regulations that give confidence to the employees to evaluate situations carry out performance assessments, make improvement plans and take the right action.

The hoshin kanri method provides the organization with; new objective focus, development of plans that support the objectives adequately, evaluating the improvement of these plans, adjusting the plans as they needed, it is a tool for learning in the organization. So hoshin makes sure that every employee in the organization is working towards similar goals. The hoshin planning is hierarchical which flows all the way through the organization and to the important business process.

The hoshin method matches the management principle of total quality organization. The leadership must take the necessary steps to shut the gaps between the organization vision and future performances. The hoshin kanri planning process ensures that performance measures and daily controls are put in place. So hoshin planning bring into line an organization towards achieving the same goals. The main objective of hoshin kanri is to focus the united goal, convey that the all the leaders, and hold the participants liable for accomplishing parts of the plan. These are the tips about hosni planning techniques.

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Although developed in Japan, hoshin planning process has been used widely by a lot of organizations and reported substantial benefits. Generally the following are some of the organizational benefits of using hoshin planning process;

Hoshin planning enables the organization to major on the vital areas of production and hence no effort is lost on the trivial matters.
It helps define the organization's strategic vision and goals and perfectly communicate them across all level of the organization's hierarchy.

Hoshin enables regular review of the organization's goals and synchronize the company's strategies in relation to the general prevailing industry situation. This is meant to meet the clients ever changing demands and preferences. The planning process itself is also continually improved through annual cycles of organizational review.

Hoshin also encourages collective and cross functional approach towards archiving organization breakthroughs. The spirit of employees offering "both hands on the wheel" is highly cultivated through this process and therefore leads to a high sense of cooperation.

Annual reviews and setting of new goals are based on comprehensive analysis and understanding of the previous cycle of deployment/planning. This ensures that the organization understands its opportunities and capabilities for future development.

Hoshin Kanri planning process similarly improves the organizations learning capability and instills a sense of ownership and motivation in all members of the organizations hierarchy. This is possible through shared responsibilities and power across all levels of organization with everyone clearly understanding and working towards a common goal.

An organization wishing to restructure and realign its strategic goals and vision to archive the most out of its resources should give hoshin kanri planning process a try for a change.

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