Lean thinking in Frescura
The term Lean Manufacturing was invented by the scholars Womack and Jones and appeared for the first time in their famous book "The machine that changed the world". The book analyses and compares in detail the performance of the production system of major car manufacturers worldwide with the Japanese Toyota system, highlighting and demonstrating the reasons for the clear superiority of the latter compared to all its competitors. Lean Manufacturing is therefore an extension and diffusion into the Western manufacturing system of the Toyota production methods (TPS or Toyota Production System), which has revolutionised all concepts dating back to the era of Ford and linked to mass production, still present today in almost all Western manufacturing.

Experts in the field are well aware that Lean Manufacturing does not express new concepts, but we consider it to be a development and completion of previous models, among them, Total Quality, to which it is able to add greater systematization.
In Frescura, too, the linchpin of lean thinking is represented by the continuous search for and elimination of waste, with the aim of producing greater and better quality, with the minimum consumption of resources. This elimination is only possible by following and implementing some key principles that are summarised below.
In practice, accepting, within Frescura, lean principles has meant

• eliminating all forms of waste;
• seeing all business processes, and primarily those in relation to production, from the customer’s point of view;
• dealing with production processes globally, so as to reduce, as far as possible, their complexity;
• accurately identifying all phases of the process that create value for the customer, eliminating everything which does not achieve value;
• establishing in the design and manufacturing processes the concept of “right first time”, that is, getting it right from the very beginning;
• processing production in continuous key flows, working mainly within the interfaces between the different phases;
• applying the principles and rules of pull production, where the customer “pulls” the production process;
• placing maximum value on total quality;
• aiming to achieve perfection through continuous improvement (Kaizen).

It is untrue that there is no such thing as perfection
In Frescura, by applying lean techniques along the whole value flow and by accurately implementing Toyota’s production philosophy, we have achieved perfection. Because perfection from Frescura’s point of view is: “do well the things that need to be done”.
 
The examples?

1. we have reduced the time to market (time spent from the initial idea to the manufacture and sale of the product) by over 60%;
2. we have reduced the order-delivery process (receiving orders, planning, producing and delivering) by over 70%;
3. we have significantly reduced stock storage time;
4. but above all we have reduced lead time (time spent transforming the raw materials into finished products) in the order of 70%.

In Frescura, eliminating waste has produced exceptional results and we are able to tame the “7 dragons” that run wild in companies, causing huge financial damage:

1. overproduction
2. product defects
3. unnecessary transport
4. unhelpful motion
5. waiting times
6. unused stock which always hides serious planning problems
7. set-up performance: a huge waste of time in traditional set-up

By introducing into our operating structure the concepts and principles of Lean Manufacturing, we have finally broken down the losing philosophy, held in the majority of companies, where responses tend to be: “we’ll do it later”, or “put it off until tomorrow”, or “there is always something more important to do than resolve a problem straightaway”, or “we’ve always done it this way, why change now?”.
 
This is why FRESCURA QUALITY is based on very solid foundations and all our customers recognise, by their loyalty, this great effort that we have created solely to provide them with facts and certainties, and not words.