THE LEAN SUPPLY CHAIN: WATCH YOUR WASTE LINE.
Lean logistics can help your company shed fat and build muscle. From its origins in Japanese industry, the Lean philosophy has spread around the world and beyond the factory floor, into business administration, healthcare, government—and logistics. For companies working to reduce costs while enhancing performance, the Lean approach is a natural fit. Viewing the world through a lens of continuous improvement, and armed with waste-fighting tools such as value stream mapping (VSM) and 5S, companies are slimming down, toning up, and working out efficient materials flow all along the supply chain. Lean initiatives can focus on specific logistics processes, or they can embrace entire supply chains. LeanCor Supply Chain Group spends a lot of time helping global companies succeed at the end-to-end approach. To keep those projects manageable, "efforts start with just a few stockkeeping units (SKUs)," says Robert Martichenko, chief operating officer at the Florence, Ky.-based third-p...