Enterprise Resource Planning

Lean manufacturing is a system designed to eliminate waste and to facilitate continuous improvement. It is a production practice that puts into consideration the expenditure of raw materials for any goal different from creation of customer’s value to be wasteful. Waste is anything that doesn’t add value from the customer’s perspective.

Epicor is an ERP provider that deals with selling software to the distribution, manufacturing, retail and service industries. Epicor offers manufacturing services, which is an integrated ERP software solution used to identify and plan extended enterprise resources. It also offers distribution services that include a full range order management, warehousing, and supply chain built within a single business.

Epicor offers lean tools in an attempt to get rid of waste. One of the lean tools offered by Epicor is the 5s, which consist of sorting, setting in order, shining, standardizing and sustaining the work area. This tool helps in eliminating waste, which result from work that has been organized poorly.

The next lean tool offered by Epicor is named continuous flow. This composes of manufacturing where work that is in process flows with little buffers during manufacturing through production. Continuous flow assists in eliminating different forms of waste for instance, waiting time, transport and inventory.

Andon is another type of lean tool offered by Epicor. It consists of visual feedback system for the floor of the plant that indicates the status of production, alerts each time help is needed, and empowering operators to stop production process. Andon acts as a communication tool that brings about instant attention to problems so that they can be addressed as they occur.

From the description of these lean tools, it can be concluded that they assist in eliminating all forms of waste. This enables the companies to operate in their best way possible and to make production effective as well as efficient.