Lean Production System
The manufacturers in the United States have always searched for efficiency strategies, which could help reduce costs, improve output, establish competitive position, and increase market share. In the early times, mass production manufacturing methods common before World War II shifted afterwards to the results-oriented, output-focused, production systems that control most of today's manufacturing businesses ('Intro to Lean' 200). After the Second World War, Japanese manufacturers were facing declining human, material, and financial resources, and the problems they face in manufacturing were vastly different from their Western counterparts, which led to the development of new and lower cost manufacturing practices ('Intro to Lean' 200).
In definition, lean production is an assembly-line manufacturing methodology developed originally for Toyota and the manufacture of automobiles, and also known as the Toyota Production System. Its goal is “to get the right things to the right place at the right time, the first time, while minimizing waste and being open to change” (Malloy 2004). This production system focuses on reducing system response time so that the production system was capable of immediately changing and adapting to market demands, so in effect, the automobiles of the Toyota Motor Company became made-to-order. In addition, the principles of the lean production system enabled the Toyota Motor Company to deliver on demand, minimize inventory, maximize the use of multi-skilled employees, flatten the management structure, and focus resources where they were needed (Malloy 2004). Moreover, in lean production systems, the value of a product is defined solely by the customer, and identifying the value in lean production means understanding all the activities required to produce a specific product, and then to optimize the whole process from the view of the customer. This viewpoint is critically important because it helps identify activities that clearly add value, activities that add no value but cannot be avoided, and activities that add no value and can be avoided ('Intro to Lean' 200).
Furthermore, a continuous improvement mentality is necessary to reach the company's goals, and the term “continuous improvement” means incremental improvement of products, processes, or services over time, with the goal of reducing waste to improve workplace functionality, customer service or product performance (cited in "Intro to Lean" 200). Continuous improvement principles, as practiced by the most devoted manufacturers, result in astonishing improvements in performance that competitors find nearly impossible to achieve ('Intro to Lean' 200). The characteristic of the lean production system thinks more about its customers than it does about running machines fast to absorb labor and overhead, and ensuring customer input and feedback assures quality and customer satisfaction ('Intro to Lean' 200).
Differences in the Jobs under Lean Production and Fordism
The first difference is shop floor organization in terms of the actual social organization of production and labor-management relations (Dassbach 1994). The shop floor organization of lean production replaces the fundamental characteristics of Fordism, namely its functional specialization, task fragmentation, and assembly line production, with overlapping work roles, job rotation, team-based work units, and relatively flexible product lines (Dassbach 1994). The basic organizational unit on the shop floor is not the isolated, individual worker found under Fordism but rather the work team, so teams are headed by an hourly paid team leader and consist of four to eight workers (Dassbach 1994). In addition, workers are cross-trained and regularly rotated to different jobs, and unlike traditional plants with the influence of Fordism, most workers in lean plants are responsible for performing routine maintenance on their equipment (Dassbach 1994). Workers under the lean production system have a far higher degree of control over both their working conditions and final products, and they are constantly encouraged to make suggestions to improve their job. On the other hand, workers under Fordism production system, some workers are punished by the management, if the standards are not met (Dassbach 1994).
The second difference is the organization of the enterprise, where Fordism has internalized or incorporated previously external activities within the enterprise. Internalization enabled Fordist firms to eliminate market transactions between suppliers, capture or eliminate intermediate profits and extend their span of control over an ever-wider range of activities (cited in Dassbach 1994). This strategy proved to be extremely successful, and highly profitable, as long as sales were expanding, but internalization also had severe and unanticipated limitations, which only became apparent with a protracted downturn in sales (Dassbach 1994).
Moreover, the third and the last differences between Fordism and lean production are interrelated, for one is inventory practices, which directly impacts on component quality, and the other, which is a consequence of inventory practices, is the spatial distribution of production. Fordism's inventory practices have been characterized as “just in case” while lean production's inventory practices have been characterized “just in time” (Dassbach 1994). Companies following a Fordist production system have tended to produce and store large stocks of components “just in case” of disruptions in supplies due to strikes, transport problems, shortage of materials and others. On the other hand, under a “just in time” system, suppliers produce components in small batches and deliver these to the main company as needed, often as frequently as two or three times a day. These parts are then assembled into vehicles almost immediately, and not only does “just in time” reduce the capital and the amount of storage space devoted to intermediate inventories, but it also quickly reveals any manufacturing defects so that these can be rectified before the next batch arrives (Dassbach 1994).
