Every professional aspires for career enhancement. But career enhancement isn’t that easy a task! One needs to provide greater deliverables and be better at handling job responsibilities besides having a requisite experience. Without all these characteristics, no company will promote a person to a managerial or higher position. Enrolling for a small training course certainly helps in enhancing a person’s credibility in the area of expertise. Through its career enhancement series, StitchWorld is discussing various certifications in discipline that may help to improve working in the garment industry. In the previous edition, 5S training institutes were in focus, and in the current edition training and certification courses in lean manufacturing are discussed in detail.
The most buzzing terminology in the industry – ‘Lean Manufacturing’ is a systematic method to provide benefits with maximum waste elimination within a manufacturing system. A huge number of industries have adopted lean manufacturing and many others are attempting to implement it through consultants. Lean manufacturing is a philosophy that outlines multi-dimensional approach towards waste elimination by being applied to everyday operations, strategies, customer satisfaction, manpower training, etc. The core idea is to minimize any kind of waste that do not add value to the product and provide customer with a defect-free product or service when required and in the quality as required through a continuous improvement process. Lean needs to be fed from top management to the bottom-most level. Everyone within the organization needs to know how they can benefit from ‘lean manufacturing’.
The key principles of lean manufacturing are: focus on product value; elimination of waste; continuous improvement and standardization; driven by customer need; and culture of change. Lean manufacturing is a set of ‘tools’ – Value Stream Mapping, 5S, Kanban (pull system), and Poka-yoke that assist in the identification and easy elimination of the waste (muda). Another approach to lean manufacturing is promoted by Toyota, where the focus is shifted from elimination of waste towards steady elimination of unevenness (mura) from the work by improving the ‘flow’ or smoothness of work through the system.
Centres for Lean Manufacturing Training Programmes
TUVNORD
- The course duration is three days.
- It is an online course.
- The individuals can enrol for the course at any time of the year.
- It’s a free course.
- Once the individual successfully passes the courses, he/she receives a TUV India Certificate.
- Since, it’s an online course, there is no particular batch size.
TUVNord is based out of Mumbai, India and provides lean manufacturing training course that gives an opportunity to learn the fundamental principles of Lean Manufacturing.
The course covers the concepts of lean management, lean management principles, concept of flow and continual improvement, and basic requirements of lean and its interpretation. It is a highly interactive course that includes a series of lectures with individuals/syndicate exercises for three days and review of practice project on the fourth day (after a month) for better learning.
Top- and middle-level management personnel from any kind of industry can enrol for the training course… From executives and managers from the production, maintenance, quality and materials departments to quality managers or quality management consultants can also join the training course.
The course provides detailed information on: lean management, history of lean and TPS, the 7 wastes and techniques to eliminate wastes, JIDOKA (AUTOMATION), poka-yoke, Kanban, 5S, Kaizen, VSM, etc. At the end, there is a written examination, successfully passing of which enables the candidate for the TUVIndia Certificate, allowing the person to apply the lean tools to a live practice project.
ALISON
- Duration of the course is 2-3 hours.
- It’s an online course.
- The individuals can enrol for the courses at any time of the year.
- The course is free of cost.
- Once passing the course with minimum of 80% marks, the individual receives an ALISON certificate.
- There is no fixed batch size.
ALISON, with its headquarters in Ireland, is a seven million-strong, global online learning community which has free and high-quality online education resources that help in developing essential and certified workplace skills. One such course provided by Alison is the online Lean Manufacturing Course that introduces the process of line balancing in lean manufacturing. The course begins by introducing the concept of line balancing and explains the terminologies associated with it and can be enrolled at any time of the year.
The course will be of great interest for professionals working in the area of operations management and lean production. The officials will be able to learn more about lean manufacturing, line balancing and facilities location, and operations management.
One can qualify for the ALISON Diploma/Certificate by studying and completing all the modules and scoring 80% or more in each of the course assessment. Once the enrolled professional completes the course, he/she will be able to assess the line balancing problems, qualitative factors in determining the location of facilities, and apply lean tools in the industry.
The course has been licensed by NPTEL OpenCourseWare.
SME
- The certification examination is in MCQ format and time allotted to complete the exam is 3 hours.
- The exam is conducted both online and offline (pen-paper).
- The individual can take the exam at any time of the year.
- The fee varies between US $ 339 to US $ 699 for online exams whereas, it ranges between US $ 339 and US $ 729 for pen-paper exams.
- The exams can be conducted anywhere under the supervision of Exam Proctor.
- The certificate is valid for 3 years.
SME, based out of Michigan, North America in collaboration with ASQ, AME, and SHINGO Institute, provides Lean Certification to individuals and companies. The Lean Certification is a certification programme that provide individuals, companies, and educators with a comprehensive and effective roadmap for professional and workforce development that aligns with industry-recognized standards. Lean Certification not only helps you attain the knowledge, it validates it.
The Lean Certification candidates will be able to encounter a more streamlined process in achieving certification as the hierarchical requirements have been eliminated, allowing the candidate to obtain certification at a rank which is most appropriate to the career, knowledge and experience. The lean certification will validate the candidate’s knowledge and application of industry-recognised lean principle and tools, enhance the career prospects along with improving the marketability within the company and industry by demonstrating the commitment towards the lean process.
Lean Certification is an evolutionary journey that makes knowledge and experience work together and hence form depth of expertise. The three Lean Certifications – Lean Bronze, Silver and Gold Certifications are valid for 3 years. To get Lean Bronze Certification one must learn the fundamentals of lean from a tactical perspective. For Lean Silver Certification, one needs to integrate the lean knowledge with leadership experience and for Lean Gold Certification, lean knowledge needs to be applied into a strategic transformation.
INSEAD
- Sponsored lean training programme.
- Duration: 7 weeks.
INSEAD, graduate business school with campuses in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), and the Middle East (Abu Dhabi), offers various academic and executive education programmes. INSEAD Business School conducts a “Fast Track” Executive Education Programme, specializing in lean manufacturing systems. The training programme was especially customized for MAS Holdings. The 7-week long training programme includes a week of lectures and six weeks of assignments that have to be implemented on the shop floor. The successful implementation of the lean manufacturing practices in the industry (assignments) leads to completion of the training and a certification.
