Lean Systems

Lean System

Finish Line uses lean systems in many different ways:

• Offer free and fast shipping to your house or local store 
• Make sure they always maintain an inventory of in-demand product 
• During major releases and holidays like Black Friday, a big staff is a must
• Employees upselling sale items to customers 
• Non-moving inventory or old inventory is put on sale
• Defected shoes are quickly brought to attention and sent back
• All customers are attended to and asked for help as soon as they walk in the store

     There are seven major wastes in lean systems which consist of transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing, and defects. Some other wastes come into play such as creativity due to not using the talents or the resources of employees to their full potential but these seven are the major ones companies refer to transportation is a waste that does not add value to the product. Poor layouts can cause excess transportation which causes wasted money spent on transportation. 

     The process of transportation should be close together and should flow directly from process to process. Inventory is another waste due to the fact excess inventory can cause large batches thus making the hangover time very lengthy. Motion is another waste which is caused by any movement of a worker or equipment that does not add value to the product or service. That also relates to another waste called waiting which is the idle time produced when two independent processes are not synchronized. 

     Overproduction and over-processing are two other wastes that go hand in hand. Overproduction is a waste that results from producing more products or service required. Over-processing is putting more into the product or service that it is valued by the customer. The last major waste has defected. Defects are the waste of products that come out deformed or not to the specification of what the product is supposed to be.

     

     Characteristics of lean systems are following the Just-in-time inventory system and less staffing to prevent any wait time in production. More training is given to employees to have multi-skilled workers and job rotation to make employees learn multiple tasks and skills. Working in teams on production lines to prevent any wait time on the production of products is another characteristic of lean systems. 

Machines that are set up for production are set up based on small production to reduce changeover time of the product. Finish Line does incorporate some of the lean system characteristics. Finish Line trains employees to be frontline employees that greet customers as well as stockroom employees. 

     They also learn how to attend to a customer purchase which includes asking the customer if they found everything that they were looking for. If they can’t find something it could be ordered for them to their house or to the store for pickup. This is an example of Just-in-time inventory. As the customers ask for something the order can be placed for the item to arrive which reduces inventory costs for the store itself because they won’t have the product just wasting space in the store until the customer requests it.