One Piece Flow and How it Benefits Businesses

The goals of business owners include ways to increase and generate profits, expanding their venture, promoting synergy, and finding ways to increase the productivity and efficiency of their business. In order to achieve these objectives, a lot of business owners are turning to lean manufacturing or production.

Lean manufacturing emphasizes work flow, focusing on customer value and improving business efficiency by reducing work expenses and by eliminating waste. Lean can benefit different individual processes in operations and taking waste out of the picture results in the lean concept of single or one piece flow.

For the uninformed business owner, one piece flow refers to an idea of moving one product at a time, entailing more efficient business operations. For one piece flow to be achieved, waste must be removed to experience its many benefits.

One of the benefits of one piece flow is an increase in the quality of products. Since products aren’t made by batches, defects are easily detected and corresponding action can be done immediately. Since problems in quality can be easily found, supervisors can make the necessary changes to improve quality and make sure the same error never happens again. Engage your workers in a one piece flow game and see the difference.

Training employees in a one piece flow game can also greatly improve flexibility. Since you only produce what is needed, you work only with the necessary inventory, making production a lot faster than working in batches. Given that you’re able to work faster and more efficiently, you have more time to react to a customer’s change in demands. Since you operate with fewer inventories, fewer resources are needed to manage it.

Trying a one piece flow game makes you realize how many unnecessary products are made with mass production, and one piece flow practices eliminates the need for this, resulting in better productivity. With less waste, fewer inventories, and more space, problem areas can be easily identified, thus giving you ample opportunity to make improvements and implement changes. Since employees take ownership in their specific area and problems can be pointed out easily, workers are motivated to innovate, make constant improvements, and simply do a better job. When this happens, expect your business to run a lot smoothly and efficiently.