US manufacturers have been moving the actual making of products out of the country for many years. This, of course, is a concern for this country. We’ve seen Germany and Italy and China aggressively move to strengthen manufacturing in their countries. Only recently has there been a concerted effort to bolster manufacturing here.
I’m an internationalist on the one hand, but each country owes it to itself to have solid manufacturing. I wondered a long time ago about the future where we would be required to import products needed in an armed conflict. Well, many organizations including this one are working to restore America’s manufacturing prowess. Making Lean Manufacturing more widespread is a good start.
Industry Reimagined 2030 just released its research report “The State of Lean Manufacturing.” The report aims to vastly increase company adoption by equipping practitioners, external experts, and educators with compelling facts and insights to make Lean highly relevant, friendly, and compelling to the interests and concerns of mainstream manufacturers.
Lean Manufacturing continuously eliminates waste, bottlenecks and improves customer value through employee engagement and utilizing data-driven tools. Seventy-four percent of survey respondents reported productivity gains over 40% without intensive capital investment. Yet only 10-15% of U.S. companies systematically use Lean and reap its competitive and financial benefits.
Lean solves many problems
- raising the level of production capability and worker productivity without intensive capital investment;
- competing against lower labor cost countries;
- creating an engaged workforce;
- building a problem-solving culture;
- truly benefitting from advanced production technology and Industry 4.0;
- becoming agile and resilient in responding to disruption.
Industry Reimagined 2030 surveyed three hundred manufacturers on the performance gains in ten manufacturing areas. The survey included both measurable and qualitative responses. Gains were cross-analyzed by a variety of demographics. The survey prompted respondents to provide personal views on gains and the ways in which Lean was implemented both initially and over the longer-term. Sentiment analysis was performed.
