Lean production methods

Advantages: 

- Encourages emplyees to take ownership of their work - can help reinforce teamwork & motivation. 

- Waste is reduced by the employees forming kaizen circles - discussing ways to improve the business. 

- Always improving so you are more efficient as time goes on. 

Disadvantages: 

- Staff needs to be trained to understand the kaizen method - employees might find it tedious - might not be willing to implement a concept they don't understand. 

- Won't work if management isn't prepared to provide the resources to successfully implemement kaizen. 

Won't work if employees don't want to take on responsibilities.

Advantages: 

- Lower stock = reduction in storage space - saves rent + insurance costs. 

- Less likelihood of stock perishing / becoming out of date.

- Less time spent on reviewing finished products (emphasis on getting work done right the first time) 

- Can charge higher prices as it's personalized. 

Disadvantages:

- Little room for mistakes as minimal stock is kept for re-working faulty products. 

- No spare finished products available to meet unexpected increase in demand as all products are made to meet actual orders) 

- Since it's dependent on time, any delays in deliveries means that the whole production schedule is delayed. 

- Requires complex, specialist stock systems = high initial cost of investment.

Advantages: 

- Discovering faults early.

- New products are brought to the market much faster. 

- Stages in production take place at the same time - more efficient. 

- Quality of product is going to be generally high as employees are trained for specific tasks. 

Disadvantages:

- Hard to manage. 

- Time consuming - if a mistake is made everyone will have to wait until its fixed.