1. Introduction
Being one of the manufacturing best practices, lean
manufacturing preaches simplification through waste
elimination that is applicable to overly-complex and nonintegrated
processes that are inefficient and provide little
added values. Ohno (1988) identified seven kinds of waste
that need to be controlled in manufacturing: overproduction,
transportation, inventory, motion, defects, over-processing,
and waiting representing the most commonly wasted
resources and associated wasteful manufacturing activities
which do not add value or are unproductive (Womack and
Jones, 2003). Lean manufacturer has potential of improving
throughput, reducing costs and wasteful tasks, and delivering
shipment with shorter lead times. Today, manufacturers