Lean management
As a professional LED lighting solutions provider, KML promotes lean practices from multiple dimensions, including customer value, production efficiency, and supply chain collaboration, to maximize product value while continuously improving operational efficiency and market competitiveness.
01
Build a precise product knowledge system
KML has established a full-staff improvement mechanism to transform lean practices from a management requirement into a daily habit:
● Proposals from frontline employees: Encourage frontline positions such as production and quality control to propose small improvements, such as optimizing the operating method of a certain process or adjusting the placement of materials, and provide rewards such as cash and honors for effective proposals.
● Special improvement team: To address issues such as high defective rates and complaints about delivery cycles, a QC team consisting of samplers, production supervisors, and quality control personnel was formed. The team used the PDCA cycle system to analyze and identify improvements one by one.
● Management Gemba Walks: Management regularly visits production sites to observe material flow and employee operations, identifying “waste invisible in the office” and promoting targeted improvements.
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02
Create an efficient production flow for led lights
From order demand to finished product delivery, KML eliminates waste in every aspect of production through value stream optimization, making the process smoother.
● Visualize the entire process: Draw a value stream map of "production plan issuance → material preparation → production line start-up → first-article verification → batch production → quality control", clearly marking the cycle time and potential waste points of each link, making the process clear at a glance.
● Eliminating waste: During the production preparation phase, the warehouse department prepares materials according to the BOM list and implements a two-person review mechanism to reduce waiting time caused by material errors or missing items. During mass production, the IPQC system conducts one-hour inspections of key workstations to intercept defective products in advance, reducing quality waste caused by "rework/scrap" of defective products.
● Focus on bottleneck links: For key nodes, establish a triple confirmation mechanism among the technical department, production department, and quality control department to avoid batch production stagnation due to first-piece problems and improve the efficiency of the entire process from the source.
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03
Promote continuous production flow
To achieve uninterrupted production, KML started with production line layout and standardized operations to streamline LED lighting production:
● Collaboration before production line startup: The production department pre-assigns personnel and work instructions, the quality control department provides inspection standards, and the equipment team ensures that machines/tooling/testing equipment are in place. Through cross-departmental joint audits, we avoid stagnation caused by missing links after production line startup and ensure smooth production flow from the start.
● Standardized operations ensure flow: Clarify the operating standards, time, and quality requirements for each process, allowing different employees to operate more uniformly and reduce process interruptions.
● Quick response to abnormalities: During batch production, if IPQC finds an abnormality, the machine will be shut down immediately, and technicians will analyze the cause. After rectification, first-article verification will be carried out again to avoid the continuous production of defective products and ensure the continuity of production flow.
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04
Pull production
KML uses pull logic to organize production and procurement to avoid overproduction or stocking:
● Production side: Use order demand to drive production plans, clarify product models, quantities and delivery nodes, replace blind production based on forecasts, and reduce finished product inventory backlogs.
● Procurement: Relying on the ERP system to automatically match high-quality suppliers, a dual-supplier guarantee mechanism is implemented for key components, while achieving full traceability of raw material batches to ensure timely and accurate supply when production needs materials, while avoiding excessive stockpiling of materials.
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05
Continuously improve and optimize production and services
KML has established a full-staff improvement mechanism to transform lean practices from a management requirement into a daily habit:
● Proposals from frontline employees: Encourage frontline positions such as production and quality control to propose small improvements, such as optimizing the operating method of a certain process or adjusting the placement of materials, and provide rewards such as cash and honors for effective proposals.
● Special improvement team: To address issues such as high defective rates and complaints about delivery cycles, a QC team consisting of samplers, production supervisors, and quality control personnel was formed. The team used the PDCA cycle system to analyze and identify improvements one by one.
● Management Gemba Walks: Management regularly visits production sites to observe material flow and employee operations, identifying “waste invisible in the office” and promoting targeted improvements.
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06
Build a professional team
The core of Lean implementation is people. KML empowers employees through layered empowerment, enabling them to become Lean practitioners:
● Tiered training: Provide targeted training systems for production frontline employees, business teams, and managers, so that different levels can understand and participate in lean.
● Empowerment and trust: Empower frontline production employees with the right to shut down production due to quality anomalies, allowing them to immediately shut down production if defects are discovered; business teams can independently respond to customer issues regarding basic products, reducing cross-departmental communication costs and stimulating employee initiative.
● Incentive integration: Link lean improvement results with employee performance and appraisal, and commend "lean star employees" to strengthen all employees' recognition of lean.
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07
Use data to drive decisions
KML makes the lean improvement process measurable and traceable by quantifying and visualizing data.
● Define core lean indicators: such as production cycle, inventory turnover rate, defective product rate, customer complaint rate, etc., to ensure that each indicator is measurable and traceable.
● Visual display: Lean dashboards are set up in the production workshop to display the number of defective products and the first-article verification pass rate in real time. Through the ERP system and dashboard, data such as the material procurement timeliness rate and supplier delivery qualification rate are displayed, allowing all employees to clearly see the gap between the current situation and the target.
● Data tracing and improvement: When inventory turnover rate decreases, data can be traced back to "backlog of LED power supply materials in a certain batch". Further investigation of the cause can promote more precise pull-based procurement improvements, and a closed-loop data system can ensure that lean effects can be implemented and optimized.
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KML management team
"Lean management methods have become a core capability for KML's continued development. They not only provide customers with more efficient and reliable lighting products, but also build a more competitive operating system for the company, supporting its long-term development in the LED lighting industry."
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