Features of learning process in lean manufacturing

At the present stage of society’s development, intellectual resources, information and knowledge are the core values and the key factors determining the outcome of competition. Modern economy is based not just on material resources flow but rather on exchanging and using ideas, knowledge and information, with human knowledge and skills being one of society’s most valuable resources. Because of that, knowledge and continued learning have become the critical success. Increasing the competitive status of an enterprise depends on its intellectual capital, on the professional skills of its employees and their motivation to create a competitive product, to constantly improve their expertise. Learning and self-learning of the employees becomes a critical factor for success in these conditions. Enterprises that adopt self-organization and self-development practices and create a corporative culture where the employees are motivated to improve their skills, interested in the enterprise’s success and grow their value through learning and self-learning will be leaders in the market. It is typical for the self-developing and self-organized enterprises that learning means creating, disseminating and systematizing new knowledge. Employee can improve their skills by self-learning, transforming these skills to money through active use by the enterprise. The knowledge necessary for improvement, the rules allowing to take a point of view and the experience allowing to accumulate and use these rules multiple times are the necessary components to adopting lean manufacturing. The concept of lean manufacturing implies that the best solution for problems can be found where the problems emerged. This means that the employees learn solving problems independently, using methods of analyzes, monitoring and finding the best solution to the problem. The analysis of lean enterprises shows that these enterprises have learning and self-learning elements such as new knowledge, motivation to learning, enterprise culture. The processes of learning and self-learning contribute to synergy when employees who wish to and have the opportunity to learn move up the career ladder and bring benefits to the enterprise, regularly searching for objects to improve with a view of the value for the consumer.