How Lean Office Training Benefits Manufacturing Customers

When you think of Lean manufacturing, you probably associate it with improving efficiency and productivity on the precision machine shop floor. But manufacturers actually apply this methodology to many business areas.

Peerless Precision began incorporating Lean manufacturing principles on the shop floor in 2014, and we’ve been continuously improving ever since. Now, we’re expanding these ideas by conducting Lean office training, with plans to progress to Lean leadership training next.

This efficiency boost will impact our business and, more importantly, customers like you. Here’s how.

Lean Manufacturing in Practice

We use the Lean methodology to identify, reduce, and eliminate waste, which speeds up our response times and increases product value for our customers.

The Lean methodology inspires us to ask questions, such as:

• How are we doing this task?
• Why are we doing this task this way?
• Is there a better way to complete this task?

Questioning the status quo and being open to new ideas enables us to see the full scope of what’s possible with our internal processes.

We can’t alter some processes because of quality certifications and customer requirements. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of opportunities to reduce waste in precision machining.

Here are eight areas of waste, according to Lean manufacturing principles:

• Transport
• Inventory
• Motion
• Waiting
• Overproduction
• Over-processing
• Defects
• Under or unutilized talent

When we use Lean manufacturing principles to eliminate waste in these areas, we streamline processes, reduce overhead, and cut costs. Benefits from these improvements inevitably trickle down to our customers.

Lean Office Training Examples

Here’s how we’re using Lean to optimize office workflows and improve customer service.

Example #1: Revamping our quoting process

Peerless Precision takes pride in our customer-friendly precision machining quoting process. We aim to have all the necessary information before quoting a part. This effort takes time, but we’re working to accelerate the process wherever possible.

Using Lean to review all the steps we take to provide a quote, we can see where to replace or cut steps that don’t offer substantial value. As a result, you get your quote faster. But rest assured, we’ll never sacrifice quality and accuracy for speed.

Example #2: Providing job status updates

Several years ago, Peerless Precision began using an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to automate and manage our core processes. This significant upgrade from Excel spreadsheets gave us greater job status visibility. Now, we’re going a step further.

Lean manufacturing principles help us speed up our customer response time. For example, if you request an update on the status of your job, a manager can reference the ERP system for this information. Then, they can determine the next steps and send you a plan of action. We’ve found that this level of transparency greatly improves customer satisfaction.

Simply put, with Lean training, you can expect better service from Peerless Precision—from the shop floor to the back office.

When our team runs like a well-oiled machine, we can serve our customers faster and more efficiently.

Request a quote for our precision machining services today using our secure form. We’ll respond to your request within 24 hours.