ELIMINATE 7 WASTES FROM

YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN

with Real-Time Asset Management
Solutions from Zebra

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In difcult economic times, lean thinking strikes a This white paper examines the impact of leveraging
chord for manufacturers as it promises to reduce proven lean principles supported by Real-time Asset
costs, improve quality and transform the bottom line, Management Solutions from Zebra Technologies. We
by eliminating waste in every area of the will identify the seven wastes of manufacturing and
value stream, including factory management and how Real-time Asset Management Solutions can
supplier networks. Its goal is to eliminate non-value eradicate these wastes. You will also learn rst hand
added processing from the customers perspective, how customers eliminated waste and beneted from
enabling less inventory, less space,less resource, less these solutions.
time and less cost to produce more and all highly
responsive to customer demand.

THE SEVEN WASTES IN MANUFACTURING

1. Over-production producing more than and/or ahead of 5. Unnecessary motion relating to people bending,
demand. The result of producing to speculative (forecast) stretching or walking too far, due primarily to the
demand or supposed economic batches, it is visible as inappropriate location (and potentially also design) of
excessive, time consuming and costly material stores. tools, parts inventories and xtures. Instead of simply
automating wasted motion, lean requires that the
2. Waiting whether for the previous, current or next step
operations themselves be improved.
in the process, the result is wasted worker time. The
goal is to maximise the utilisation and/or efciency of 6. Excess inventory specically referring to WIP between
operatives rst and machines second. operations and purchased parts within the supply chain,
frequently resulting from overproduction, usually due
3. Transportation unnecessary transport of materials,
to excessively large batch manufacturing or processes
WIP (work in progress) and nished goods adds zero
with long cycle times leading in turn to cost and clutter.
value to the product. Instead of improving transportation
This waste also creates additional waste in the form of
processes and systems, lean thinking rst favours
increased lead-times, excessive oor space requirements,
minimizing or eliminating them.
extra handling, high interest charges, avoidable people
4. Non-value added processing doing more work than is movement and paperwork and, again, the associated
necessary, according to the value principle often due costs.
to poor plant layout or misguided attempts to recover
7. Defectsproducing defective parts or products results
expensive machinery costs. Lean essentially advocates
in rework and scrap and invariably adds signicantly
using simpler, lower cost tools, cell manufacturing and/or
to manufacturing costs. Lean focuses on preventing
combining steps, where possible.
the occurrence of defects, rather than improving the
processes around nding and repairing them.

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Lean manufacturing is about the obsessive elimination standardize and sustain) somewhere in production or
of waste waste being dened by lean practitioners a warehouse. Instead, this denition of lean manufac -
as what customers would perceive as processes and turing leads instantly to the strategic, top down view,
actions that dont add value, and for which they dont as enshrined in leans ve governing principles.
want to pay. Given the current difcult conditions for
much of manufacturing in the developed world, lean is First, deliver value with, as above, the customer at
also commonly associated with getting more from front of mind. Second, identify the value stream (by
less. But for the tightest denition, go to the US value stream mapping all the stages of production,
National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) warehousing and ultimately the entire business).
Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP), which Third, make the value ow, with a goal (mostly
describes lean as: A systematic approach to identify - unreachable) of single piece ow, by moving from the
ing and eliminating waste through continuous current state to a chosen future state and remem -
improvement, owing the product at the pull of the bering, crucially, that information also needs to ow.
customer in pursuit of perfection. Fourth, make-to-order, meaning only make or do
anything when you need to using, for example, JIT
Succinct, yes, but useful too because implicit in that (just in time) principles. And fth, strive for (almost
sentence is a clear warning for lean manufacturing unattainable) perfection, using the methodologies and
wannabes to avoid cherry picking lean initiatives and tools for both continuous and blitz (kaizen) improve -
methodologies such as simply setting up kanban ments. Underpinning all of that thinking is removal of
replenishment, focusing on reducing set-up times, or the seven prevalent wastes of lean manufacturing
doing the workplace 5Ss (sort, set in order, shine, those aspects that, again, fail to add value.

ADDRESSING WASTE IN THE

REAL WORLD
Lean thinking is pragmatic. For example, although lean the intention is to use lean principles beyond the
methodology drives towards zero inventory, zero simple repetitive production environments for which it
waiting, rapid changeovers, zero duplication and so was originally intended as in the Toyota Production
on, its practitioners recognise that much of production System. Quite simply, lean practitioners recognise that
and distribution necessarily involves some batch, and in a volatile and/or complex supply chain, whether
even forecast, processes. They also understand that internal or external, modern manufacturers just cannot
commercial pressures, often beyond a manufacturers implement lean practices on visual queues and takt
direct control, inuence purchasing and stocking times alone. Thus, with appropriate solutions cong -
strategies. ured to collect data, disseminate information, enable
visibility and automate background processes such
Thus, whether those issues concern material availabil - as those around material replenishment and assembly
ity and pricing, or customer service strategies dictated nishing, including outside the four walls of the
by competition, there is scope in lean thinking for factory even complex manufacturing organizations
some apparent waste, particularly in the areas of benet from lean principles.
overproduction and transportation. However, while
some waste might be justiable, leans principles That is the case no matter how prone production and
consistently emphasise root cause analysis and a supply chains are to the challenges of product mix,
sharp focus on systemic improvement focusing on demand variability and/or the realities of breakdowns
value, using its improvement methodologies, prac - and resulting material availability problems. Timely
tices and KPIs, and implementing systems and information aimed at delivering visibility of materials,
processes that sustain improvements. WIP, scrap etc, as well as automating material ow
and assisting with the understanding, communication
Most importantly, lean thinking also implicitly recom - and resolution of downtime issues directly address -
mends judicious use of IT systems, particularly where es the seven wastes.

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Hence the rise of Lean Application Solutions in the through a port, optimizing parts for manufacturing or
form of e-kanbans, lean loop replenishment sizing managing ground support equipment at an airport,
applications, Web EDI and, most recently, Real-time these automated solutions provide complete visibility
Asset Management Solutions. Looking at the latter, and greater velocity to deliver measurable business
those developed by Zebra Technologies Corporation, improvement. In addition, the solutions support lean
oers world-class solutions to optimize the ow of principles and reliably and cost eectively manage
goods and manage assets across the global supply everything from material replenishment to defective
chain. materials and valuable mobile resources, delivering a
return on investment within 3 to 12 months. Based on
Zebra Technologies provides an integrated wireless patented, standards-compliant technology resulting
infrastructure for real-time location, digital messaging, from a collective 100-plus years of development,
telemetry and wireless networking applications. Zebra Real-time Asset Management Solutions enable
Together these give manufacturers, spanning aero - companies such as Whirlpool, BMW Subaru, Ford
space, automotive, industrial and government indus - Motor Company, GETRAG FORD and Hawker Beech -
tries, the ability to continuously manage the physical craft to reduce inventory, lower operating costs and
location and status of their business critical assets, improve operations through lean thinking.
equipment and people. Whether tracking containers

ZEBRA REAL-TIME ASSET

MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS
Material Flow Solution Zebra Material Flow processes, granting every member of the supply chain
Solution is a comprehensive execution management access to actionable, real-time data from the factory
solution that streamlines the entire replenishment oor to internal and external supply. It enables all
process. Material Flow Solution provides manufactur - stakeholders to respond quickly to changes in inven -
ing operations with the ability to centrally manage and tory and production status, as well as customer
control supplier collaboration, internal supply and requests. In addition, it easily integrates with ERP
facility-wide communication across multiple facilities solutions, such as SAP, Oracle and QAD, to enhance
or within a single location. Designed to support and operational visibility, throughput and quality, while also
automate lean replenishment techniques, Material reducing inventory and labour costs.
Flow Solution eliminates disjointed, labour intensive

MATERIAL FLOW SOLUTION DIRECTLY ADDRESSES ALMOST ALL

OF THE SEVEN WASTES IN THE FOLLOWING WAYS:
Decreasing on-hand inventory by 5-10%, by Elminating line stoppages and business interrup -
cutting the waste of over-production and dramati - tions, again cutting into the waste of waiting
cally reducing excess inventory Decreasing expedite fees, directly impacting the
Reducing labour costs by 15-20%, by tackling the waste of transportation
wastes of waiting and unnecessary wastes of Reducing cycle times and increase throughput
waiting and unnecessary motion - in line with leans fundamental value and cus -
Improving asset utilisation by 5-10%, by reducing tomer-pull principles
moves towards over-processing and preventing
the wast of waiting

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How Does it Work? Material Flow Solution auto - execution level information back into ERP to improve
mates the inventory replenishment process and error proong and data accuracy. Also, Material Flow
reduces inventory holding costs by enabling line-side Solution streamlines ERPs demand driven pull replen -
operators to trigger material requests from their ishment processes by reducing multiple steps into a
workstations, either by pressing the wireless Wher - single transaction, from start to nish. The solution
eCall RFID button, scanning a barcode, or by integrat - provides real-time execution information that focuses
ing with a third party system. In turn, material requests on delivering the product, from external supplier or
are delivered in an optimized priority, allowing internal storage to the line-side point of- use, with
requests to be processed rapidly and efciently, so actionable and easy-to-use instructions for plant oor
reducing lag time and line stoppages. This allows operatives.
customers to maintain lower inventory levels at line
side and in remote storage locations. Zebra Vehicle Tracking & Management Solution
(VTMS) Zebra Vehicle Tracking & Management
Similarly, Material Flow Solution increases labour Solution (VTMS) Zebra Vehicle Tracking & Manage -
productivity and improves asset utilisation by provid - ment Solution (VTMS) provides real-time information
ing real-time material requests that show what is to track, measure and manage vehicles anywhere
needed in a priority-based consumption demand within a vehicle production facility, both indoors and
process determined by part cycle times and pick and outdoors. VTMS allows management and operatives
deliver sequencing. to know, in real time or historically, exactly where a
vehicle is or has been, with accuracy to within three
As one leading international automaker in Indiana, US, meters. It communicates the physical location of
stated: After realizing more than 12% efciency gains vehicles by zone and parking slot via an interactive
from implementing the Material Flow Solution in one graphical map. VTMS is a ground-breaking step in
part of our factory, we expanded use of the solution automating vehicle tracking and management in
so that we now manage 750 parts across a span of todays assembly, delivery chain and eet operations,
more than 1.5 million square feet. With access to and is the rst to provide real-time information to
real-time data and analytics-rich reports, we have todays manufacturing management community.
everything at our ngertips to make intelligent deci - VTMS is designed to support either repetitive or
sions and change business processes on the y. Zebra job-order manufacturing operations, with a focus on
has helped us take our lean manufacturing initiative to areas of the business and processes where units are
a new level. o the line typically including post-assembly verica -
tion and test processes, as well as quality repair,
Additionally, the Material Flow Solution maximizes the containment and shipping zones. O-line processes
value of existing ERP software investments by lever - are frequently a forgotten segment of lean manufac -
aging their master data repository and making the turing, and VTMS is one of the worlds rst systems to
information ow. The solution returns real-time drive efciency and optimization in this area.

VTMS ELIMINATES ALL OF THE SEVEN WASTES IN THESE AREAS IN

THE FOLLOWING WAYS:
Increasing vehicle throughput - by cutting out the Improving inventory accuracy - which in turn
overprocessing, unnecessary motion and trans - impacts over-processing improvements
portation that result from otherwise limited Reducing operating costs - primarily as a result of
vehicle location and status information the over-processing improvements
Reducing dwell-time - not only by cutting out the Reducing labour costs per vehicle - due to VTMS
waste of waiting, but also transportation and impact on motion and transportation, but also the
unnecessary motion waste of defects
Increasing labour productivity - again by attacking Improving the overall order of delivery (OTD)
unnecessary motion cycle - by enabling lean value-adding and pull-
Minimizing work-in-process inventory - which in based processes, in turn resulting from good,
turn impacts over-processing, over-production targeted information ow
and ultimately also excess inventory

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How Does it Work? VTMS is composed of three When these rst two elements are combined, a
interrelated solution elements: location, business vehicle can be evaluated to determine where it should
process modelling, and mobile work force execution. be moved to next. The third element, mobile work
The rst element, vehicle location, provides an under - force execution, then directs that movement request
standing of work cell or process area staging availabil - to the appropriate person or group. Mobile workers
ity. Location tells us if an area is occupied or not utilise WiFi connected devices that allow them to
occupied by a vehicle. The second element is busi - understand the priority and sequence of vehicle
ness process modelling, which combines vehicle moves as well as the current location of the vehicle
attributes, both physical and system generated, such and where it is to be taken.
as quality concerns or test results, with a model of the
process areas. Modelling a process area provides the VTMS also provides for accurate planning, execution
solution with an understanding of what work is and monitoring of performance making it the ulti -
performed where and in what sequence. mate support tool for improving processes and
creating efciency in ofine manufacturing areas.

CUSTOMER SUCCESS
GETRAG FORDS MATERIAL FLOW DEPLOYMENT

inventory, non-value add processing, waiting, unneces -

sary motion and transportation.

On excess inventory, for example, the result is reduc -

ing inventory carrying costs by $750,000 while the
company also reports signicant savings in handling
and storage costs. As for unnecessary motion, the
labour productivity and equipment utilisation gures
GETRAG FORD is one of the largest manufacturers of speak for themselves as does the fact that, for
automotive transmissions in the world. As part of example, production line operatives no longer need
its lean manufacturing initiative, the company imple - to leave their workstations to help search for parts, or
mented Zebra Material Flow Replenishment system to help material control determine the correct parts.
automate parts processes throughout its 2 million
square foot assembly plant in Cologne, Germany. The Equally, waiting has been massively impacted and as
results, according to GETRAG FORDs logistics and a result, downtime slashed entirely due to sorting
material handling supervisor, include improvements all out problems with parts shortages by enabling sup -
the way from labour productivity up 20%, to equip - plier visibility of changing production demand. The
ment utilisation up 30% and on-hand inventory down facility manufactures six dierent transmission variet -
from seven days to two. Also reported is increased ies for global brands, including Ford, Mazda and Volvo
manufacturing oor space utilisation, improved with output of more than one million assemblies per
manufacturing plant oor demand visibility and a one annum for OEMs in Argentina, China, Europe, Japan,
third reduction in daily forklift trips. The company has South Africa, Taiwan, the Philippines and US. As a
almost completely eliminated line downtime due to result, many dierent parts are consumed at line-
parts shortages. side, all of which have to be well orchestrated from a
supply standpoint, particularly to avoid the wastes of
Consider those achievements in terms of leans seven excessive movement and WIP inventory.
wastes: in this case their positive impact on excess

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How Does it Work? Apart from the Material Flow equipped with vehicle-mounted WiFi terminals tell -
Replenishment application itself, Zebra implemented: ing them where to pick up and deliver the parts
a wireless messaging infrastructure of 220 active RFID throughout the assembly plant. The system also alerts
WhereCall buttons, each of which is associated with a suppliers when parts are needed, with its Supplier
specic part number on the assembly line; a network Portal allowing them to receive real-time demand
of 12 wireless WhereLAN location sensors; and ve signals and ship parts from within the portal. It then
kerstrom rugged mobile computers, mounted on manages synchronous ow of those parts from the
forklift trucks. supplier to the plant warehouse dock door, from the
warehouse to the staging lane, and ultimately to the
As each container of parts is consumed at lineside, assembly-line operator who originated the request.
the replenishment system communicates a request Hence the outstanding end-to-end impacts on inven -
for another to that location. Specically, at each tory, productivity and waste.
location there is a predened minimum inventory
called a recorder point. When inventory reaches that The system moves us a long way toward our ultimate
point, the system makes its material request, mostly goal of a completely forklift-less production operation,
via wireless push-button or automatic (for robotic or as we are now operating leaner than ever before.
highly automated processes) RFID tags positioned at Production-line employees no longer need to leave
the operators workstations close to the inventory their workstations to help search for parts or to help
points. Its similar to an e-kanban system, except that material control determine the correct part. All they
not only does the system support internal and supplier have to do is push a WhereCall active RFID button,
material replenishment requests, but also manufactur - and the system noties all the required parties from
ing messages, such as requests to support organiza - the line-side to the forklift driver to the internal ware -
tions, such as electricians and toolmakers. house that more parts are needed. This intelligent
automated system supports our lean manufacturing
The solution tracks the exact time of all part requests, processes as we benet from real-time inventory
automatically prioritizes them and sends instructions consumption and can execute replenishment orders
to material handling drivers whose vehicles are just in time.

CONCLUSION
By adopting lean manufacturing techniques, support - and wireless networking applications. Together these
ed by Real-Time Asset Management Solutions, you give manufacturers, spanning aerospace, automotive,
can reduce and/or eliminate the seven wastes of industrial and government industries, the ability to
manufacturing. Thats because timely information continuously manage the physical location and status
aimed at delivering visibility of materials, WIP, scrap of their business critical assets, equipment and
and assets, as well as automating material and people.
process ows is the key to improvement and
becoming leaner. Based on patented, standards-compliant technology,
resulting from a collective 100-plus years of
Zebra oers a broad range of scalable Real-Time Asset development, Zebra Real-Time Asset Management
Management solutions that address all wastes, and Solutions enable companies such as Whirlpool,
signicantly reduce costs, inventory and cycle times, Subaru, Ford Motor Company, GETRAG FORD and
while increasing throughput and asset utilisation. The Hawker Beechcraft to reduce inventory, lower
company provides an integrated wireless infrastruc - operating costs and improve operations through
ture for real-time location, digital messaging, telemetry lean thinking.

A Zebra Technologies White Paper 7

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