Lean Manufacturing Now a Process Industries Necessity

Cindy Jutras writes about the evolution and success of lean manufacturing in the process industries (food and beverage, chemicals, pharmaceuticals and the like) in Manufacturing Business Technology. She argues that consultants who help companies become lean have now matured through a number of process company’s lean projects, thereby enabling a higher level of success.

“…as this new bastion of lean enterprises emerged, we saw a number of marquee hybrid and process manufacturers enjoy their own success stories. And as the lean implementations matured, so did the consultants. Today, instead of having a community of lean consultants with 10 to 20 years of discrete experience, we now have lean practitioners with 15 to 25 years experience in discrete, hybrid, and process industries.”

This supports my view that the best consultant’s and technology/software companies are knowledge brokers because of their ability to work with many different company’s implementations. The innovation that results is remarkable because many times cross-industry solutions are applied. Peculiarities involved in applying similar solutions, like lean, to different industries and processes require a period to mature and ripen.

How do you feel about applying the title of knowledge broker to consultants and software companies? Have you taken advantage of the innovation that can result? If you are a process firm, have you applied lean manufacturing principles to your organization?

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