ABSTRACT
This chapter shows how custom fabricators can implement the Principles of Lean using the tools of Job Shop Lean at each step of implementation of a high-level conceptual framework for implementing the Toyota Production System (TPS). Job Shop Lean is an approach to implement Lean in job shops and other high-mix low-volume manufacturing environments that is based upon the Lean Principles, but focuses on Flow (NOT elimination of waste). Custom fabricators who desire to improve their On-Time Delivery (OTD) performance must quit relying on the “TPS” and design “Their Production System”. But they could do this only if they replaced the tools in the right-hand column. A job shop is the most complex and unmanageable production system provides the simplest evidence that trying to improve OTD performance of a job shop using tools designed to improve a repetitive assembly line’s performance is like fitting a square peg into a round hole.
