Making

Materials
Flow
A lean material-handling guide for operations,
production-control, and engineering professionals

By Rick Harris, Chris Harris, and Earl Wilson

Foreword by Jim Womack, Dan Jones, John Shook, and Jose Ferro

A Lean Toolkit Method and Workbook

The Lean Enterprise Institute
Brookline, MA, USA
www.lean.org

Version 1.0
September 2003

With gratitude to Art Smalley, George Taninecz, Helen Zak, and Offpiste Design
for their role in the development of this workbook.

Copyright 2003 The Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc.

P.O. Box 9, Brookline, MA 02446 USA
www.lean.org
Version 1.0, September 2003
ISBN 0-9741824-9-4
All rights to the text and illustrations reserved by The Lean Enterprise Institute.

Thanks to my wife Ann for her loving support in this project and in all that I do.
Thanks to all of our clients throughout the world who work with us to implement
these lean manufacturing principles.
Rick Harris
With great appreciation for the love, friendship, and support of my wife Joie. And
with gratitude to our clients throughout the world who allow us to come into their
facilities and learn with them.
Chris Harris
With gratitude to my clients who have so openly accepted applying these principles
in their facilities. Thanks to my family and friends but especially to my wife Susan
for her support, understanding, and encouragement in doing work that I love.
Earl Wilson

FOREWORD
When we launched Learning to See (LTS) in the summer of 1998 as the first publication of
the Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI), we urged readers to start down a path toward perfect
operational processes by mapping the value stream for each product family. We pointed out
that mapping could be done at many levels from a single process within a manufacturing
facility to the complete path from raw materials to the customer. We suggested that the best
place to start is with the flow of information and materials within the walls of a single plant.
In drawing a typical plant-level map, we almost always see great opportunities for introducing
continuous flow by moving isolated processing steps together to create compact cells. In
Creating Continuous Flow, the second LEI publication, launched in the summer of 2001,
we asked Mike Rother and Rick Harris to focus on the process level. They described in
detail how lean thinkers aggregate disconnected processing steps into compact cells with
truly continuous flow.
As with LTS, we have been delighted with the response to Creating Continuous Flow, which
has sold more than 11,000 copies and now is being translated into multiple languages. However,
progress in introducing lean methods on one dimension often exposes new problems on other
dimensions. Recently, as we have looked at firms introducing continuous-flow cells, weve
noted that output from their cells still is uneven. Some simple investigation shows the reason:
The flow of necessary materials to the cells is erratic and occasionally material delivery fails.
In biological terms, the metabolism of the cell now is right but the supply of nutrients still is
a problem. So how can you create a circulatory system to take full advantage of your carefully
created areas of continuous flow (including traditional assembly lines) while also meeting the
needs of other production activities still in batch mode? The methods are not mysterious.
Toyota and its affiliated companies pioneered them years ago. However, weve found that to
understand and apply them most managers, engineers, and materials specialists need a friendly
sensei (teacher) to walk them through a step-by-step implementation process that focuses their
vision and targets their actions.
To fill this need we are now publishing this sequel to Mike Rother and Rick Harris Creating
Continuous Flow. In it we move from performance at the individual cell level to the materialhandling system for the whole organism (in this case an entire facility) as Rick Harris, Chris
Harris, and Earl Wilson take your hand and lead the way in Making Materials Flow.

If youre implementing the concepts presented in Creating Continuous Flow, youre already
familiar with Rick, a veteran of the shop floor as a manager in assembly at Toyota Motor
Manufacturing Kentucky (TMMK) in Georgetown, KY. Chris and Earl, though, may be
new names. Chris Ricks son is one of a new generation of Lean Thinkers and was
indoctrinated on the assembly line at TMMK. Earl, who has been helping companies get lean
for the past seven years, was a materials manager for Johnson Controls Inc., Georgetown, KY,
where he learned the Toyota Production System by supplying Toyota.
Each step the authors present developing an accurate database on parts in the facility,
setting up a purchased-parts market, establishing a material-delivery route, and developing
the information links that connect the production cells to the purchased-parts market
builds on the step before and leads to a more competitive production process that also is
more satisfying to those who operate it.
We warned in our Introduction to Creating Continuous Flow that creating cells is harder
than simply drawing maps. And we must warn here that creating and sustaining the rigorous
material-flow system described in the pages ahead is an even larger challenge because more
people and processes are involved over larger areas. Its hard work, and you will make mistakes
as you get started. But the benefits for your business are enormous, and all of the knowledge
you need is summarized here.
Given the nature of your challenge, we are particularly anxious to hear about your successes
and your difficulties and to connect you with the Lean Community at www.lean.org. We
also need to hear your suggestions for improving Making Materials Flow. Please send them
to mmf@lean.org.

Jim Womack, Dan Jones, John Shook, and Jose Ferro

Brookline, MA, USA; Ross-on-Wye, Hereford, UK; Ann Arbor, MI, USA;
Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil.

www.lean.org

Acknowledgment of Sponsor Support

Preparation of this workbook was assisted by a grant from LSG Sky Chefs,
a firm undertaking its own lean transformation and the first organization to
sponsor a Lean Enterprise Institute workbook. We express gratitude to
LSG Sky Chefs; Gary Berndt, chief operating officer, LSG Sky Chefs
Americas Region; and Andreas Krinninger, global senior vice president
operational excellence. The LSG Sky Chefs team proves you successfully
can implement lean concepts in industries typically not viewed as traditional
manufacturing in this case, airline catering. Underwriting of costs permits
the Institute to more quickly spread lean knowledge, and we hope other
organizations will copy LSG Sky Chefs example.