In today’s competitive market manufacturing has to be governed by the principal of the lowest cost with the highest quality. Manufacturers face various business issues such as market globalization, fierce competition, current economic challenges, etc. To be able to succeed they must cut costs in a way that does not affect quality, customer service or product availability. Lean manufacturing is considered to be a concept that can help manufacturers evolve and compete.

The U.S. is the leading manufacturer in the world, but in the past years manufacturing jobs are being exported to overseas markets due to the cheaper labor and operating costs which means that U.S. manufacturers have to apply all the available methods to operate with maximum efficiency in order stay competitive. It is noted that many companies that are employing lean manufacturing principles manage to survive in tough economic climate.

Lean manufacturing is grounded on eliminating wastes, or anything that does not add value, in the production process. Lean manufacturing is a lasting improvement process with the main goal of delivering products in the quickest, most efficient, and cost effective manner. It focuses on identifying seven forms of wastes: waiting, overproduction, over processing, work in progress, transportation, motion and defects.

Principles of lean manufacturing are based on the Toyota Production System (TPS) developed in the 1940s. TPS showed that even though processes differ between factories, common wastes and inefficiencies could be found in all types of production environments. TPS turned Toyota into a world recognized brand. Besides manufacturing, number of other industries applied TPS principles over the years including information services and health care.

Lean manufacturing has a great potential for cost reduction, but implementing lean practices to small businesses can be challenging and time consuming, and is often viewed as too expensive as most of these small operations cannot afford to employ a lean manufacturing expert to oversee the process. For small businesses, “going lean” begins with learning everything about lean philosophy, tools and techniques. Today there are many free resources and low-cost workshops that business owners can use to educate themselves about the process of transforming their business into lean manufacturing. One very useful resource is the U.S. government site business.gov. For additional information on how to become lean visit http://www.business.gov/industries/manufacturing/lean-manufacturing.html