Lean manufacturing is a method used by manufacturing companies in their processes whereby the key stratagems involved are aimed at improving efficiency and effectiveness in production procedures. It seeks to identify, reduce, and eliminate wastes in the production procedures as well as improving the quality, transparency, and pace of the procedures in the manufacturing process. It places prominence on the elimination of procedures during production which uses resources in the process and does not potentially add any value to the end product of being manufactured. Since manufacturing process involves channeling various limited resources together to obtain an end product, the fact of limited resources makes them expensive to get. Thus, manufacturing companies focusses on utilizing these resources to result in maximum value addition and minimization of resource wastage (US EPA, 2013). This paper is a brief report on how Johnson and Johnson Company implement the lean manufacturing philosophy and the conformality of their operations to the US Environmental Agency guidelines.
Application of lean manufacturing portends various benefits as evident from Johnson and Johnson Company, which embraced this technique with the aim of reducing resource wastage in its manufacturing and supply operations. Since Johnson and Johnson is a multinational corporation, it has many activities globally (“Johnson & Johnson: Sustainability,” n.d.). Johnson and Johnson noted in their statement of implementation of the lean manufacturing method that different factors are likely to be experienced in production procedures as a company undertakes huge scale processes. Therefore to combat these bogging factors, lean manufacturing is embraced to efficient the operations as well as save the environment (“Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Engages and Inspires Associates,” n.d.). The manufacturing processes at Johnson and Johnson involves resources that are obtained from the environment, which means environmental resources are not used. Most of these input resources are not manufactured but are rather extracted naturally from the environment in their natural forms.
One example of resource used in the production processes is water which can only be obtained from the environment naturally but is considered an economic commodity. Lean manufacturing implementation helps usage of this resource efficiently to get a value-added product. This efficient water use is environmentally positive since limited amounts of water will be used in the process. Johnson and Johnson company has been able to reduce pollution immensely by adopting lean manufacturing as per provisions of the US Environmental Safety Agency guidelines. Their manufacturing processes at Johnson and Johnson has embraced recycling of wastes in order to reduce pollution. Johnson and Johnson Company implemented changes to their mechanical systems and their organizational culture in line with lean manufacturing systems (“Johnson & Johnson: Sustainability,” n.d.).
Furthermore, the company trained all their employees with the apt capabilities for change in the processes. Johnson and Johnson came up with a communication structure which ensured rapid reporting of any shortcomings in the implementation of the stratagems. To affect the success of lean manufacturing system, it hired experts in environmental matters (“Johnson & Johnson: Sustainability,” n.d.). The system was to be implemented upon real data obtained from the manufacturing procedures to measure the range of operations, and efficiency. In addition, the company benchmarked the other companies which had adopted lean manufacturing system so as to gauge their successes in implementation of the stratagem Johnson and Johnson Company conforms to the US Environmental Agency since in implementing lean manufacturing system, it recommended a risk management program coined RPM (US EPA, 2013). This aimed at modernizing the production process to avert wastes with regards to environmental conservancy which is a key strategy in the guiding principle for the US Environmental Agency.