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Lean Manufacturing Helps Reduce Internal Costs Renton, Washington — The assembly line for Next-Generation 737 upper wing panels literally moves about six inches a minute, ensuring a smooth, continuous production flow and enabling employees to gauge their progress at a glance. This moving production line, one of several moving lines operating in the company today, was developed in 1997 using principles of lean manufacturing. Since implementing the Next-Generation 737 upper wing panel moving line, employees in this area have improved their cycle time by 73 percent and productivity by 53 percent. We are using lean-manufacturing techniques throughout the company to reduce internal costs and improve our production systems. Lean manufacturing relies on the experts — people on the factory floors who actually do the physical work — to change their work areas and processes to maximize efficiency, improve quality and safety, and eliminate unnecessary motion and inventory. Since 1997, Commercial Airplanes employees have completed more than 1,600 lean manufacturing improvement workshops. These workshops are aimed at giving employees in individual work areas the techniques and opportunity to reduce their cycle time, defects, parts travel distances, and work-in-process.
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