The role of lean in the application of information technology to manufacturing

The Australian furnishing industry has been subject to severe competition from global suppliers in the last decade. Supported by the government's Action Agenda, the Furnishing Industry Association of Australia developed the “Production Efficiency Program” to improve efficiency of the industry. The core of the program was three showcase projects demonstrating how return on investment can be achieved with the application of advanced manufacturing technologies. Instead of committing large capital expenditure in IT based manufacturing systems, the showcases started by applying lean manufacturing principles and transformed the business practices to adopting latest IT systems for the planning and control of manufacturing. This paper outlines the innovative aspects of the program, issues tackled and techniques applied to the showcases. The paper also reports a case study of a small furniture company that achieved 30% increase in productivity by implementing a new scheduling system that assisted implementation of lean manufacturing.