Lean for Manufacturers

Date: Thursday, September 18, 2025

Time: 8:30 am - 3:30 pm

Location: Courtyard Marriot, 4 Sebethe Drive, Cromwell, CT 06416

The "Lean for Manufacturers: A Path to Operational Excellence" course provides a comprehensive introduction to core Lean principles and practices, aiming to optimize processes, eliminate waste, and achieve production goals.

The course thoroughly explores the "Eight Wastes" (DOWNTIME) and introduces essential Lean tools such as Value Stream Mapping for visualizing processes, Point of Use Storage for efficient organization, Quality at the Source for defect prevention, Standard Work for consistency, 5S for workplace organization, and Pull/Kanban systems for demand-driven production.

Through interactive simulations and practical examples, participants will learn to apply these concepts to reduce lead time, minimize inventory, improve quality, and foster a culture of continuous improvement, ultimately enhancing overall operational efficiency and competitiveness for manufacturing organizations.

In order to remove waste from the value stream, clients will learn to evaluate their current state based on future state.

This training will cover:

The Core of Lean: Identifying and Eliminating the 8 Wastes (DOWNTIME)

A fundamental concept in Lean is the systematic identification and elimination of eight types of waste: Defects, Overproduction, Waiting, Non-utilized People (Talent), Transportation, Inventory, Motion, and Excess Processing.

Visualizing Processes with Value Stream Mapping (VSM)

Value Stream Mapping is introduced as a crucial visual tool for understanding the entire flow of materials and information from raw material to the customer. By mapping both value-added and non-value-added steps, VSM helps to expose hidden wastes, bottlenecks, and opportunities for process improvement, moving beyond a departmental view to a holistic understanding of operations.

Optimizing Flow: Batch Size Reduction and Cellular Flow

Lean advocates for a shift from traditional large-batch processing to continuous, one-piece flow or significantly reduced batch sizes. The course explains how this approach, often facilitated by cellular layouts, minimizes Work In Process (WIP), reduces lead times, increases flexibility, and improves responsiveness to customer demand by ensuring products move smoothly through the production system.

Building Stability: Standard Work and 5S

Standard Work defines the most efficient, safest, and highest-quality method for tasks, reducing variation and providing a baseline for continuous improvement. The 5S methodology (Sort, Set in Order, Shine, Standardize, Sustain) focuses on workplace organization, reducing search time, improving safety, and enabling visual management.

Demand-Driven Production: Pull Systems and Kanban

Learn about pull systems, where production is triggered by actual customer demand or the consumption of the next step process, rather than by forecasts (push systems). Kanban, a visual signaling tool, is presented as the primary mechanism for managing these pull systems, effectively minimizing overproduction and excess inventory, and ensuring a highly responsive supply chain.

Ensuring Quality and Continuous Improvement at the Source

Quality at the Source (Jidoka) empowers operators to identify and stop production immediately if a defect occurs, preventing problems from propagating downstream and building quality into every step. This principle, combined with the overarching philosophy of Continuous Improvement (Kaizen), fosters a culture where everyone is engaged in identifying and implementing small, incremental improvements daily, striving for perfection.

Host or Publisher CONNSTEP