ABSTRACT
Engineering, many times unknowingly, plays a vital role in Lean manufacturing and office transactional Lean processes. Design Fishbone process involves literally taking each part that goes into an assembly and laying the part out on the floor in the order it is assembled. Lean methodology’s number one principle is to create a culture of removing waste in the process and fill the void with true value-added functions. Unfortunately, it takes skills, expertise and a willingness to compromise some of the Lean principles to balance complex lines with poorly designed products. A common cause of this type of Lean failure, engineering design, usually becomes invisible once a product is launched into production. A point to remember is no amount of Lean after the fact can fix a design that is deficient and inefficient to manufacture. Designing products and manufacturing them for sale are the basis of the global economy or, more local terms, the degree in which we all support ourselves.
