Tobacco Asia

Volume 18, Number 2

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tobaccoasia 57 duction from the perspectives of lean culture, lean methodology, lean organization, lean management and lean targets. On January 15, 2014, STMA is- sued a statement in which it declared that in 2014, the tobacco industry would establish a nationwide total of 130 units of modern tobacco agriculture bases, 19 units of characteristic and high-quality leaf tobacco development bases and 14 units of leaf tobacco lean production pilot bases. So how can the concept of lean production be understood? And how should lean production be operated? Lean production, particularly in the Chinese context, is viewed as a mode of production of timely manufacturing, sustained development and elimination of wasteful practices in order to meet demand. It is intended to address challenges faced by enterprises in terms of costs, efficiency and sustainability. In his speech at the meeting, Li Keming stressed that lean production of tobacco must meet five conditions: accurate information, sophisticated technology, precise operation, lean management and highly qualified human resources. The tobacco industry is taking steps to estab- lish a series of testing systems, collect information on tobacco fields, leaf tobacco quality and various tobacco growing activities, and build large data- bases, which can be used to guide and quality-test leaf tobacco processes and products, all part of the industry's efforts to minimize wasting of resourc- es. This means making the process of production a lot more transparent. The process of tobacco farming in China does not stand still, the technology being used keeps advancing and upgrading, while certain new ap- proaches combine the previously disparate ac- tivities of leaf tobacco production into integrated systems in order to implement the principle of "lean technology". Likewise, farming machinery, grassroots-level tobacco stations operated by lo- cal tobacco monopoly administrations and infra- structure facilities in tobacco fields keep improv- ing along with changing production requirements, enhancing compatibility between leaf tobacco pro- duction activities and production equipment. If a standard work flow is designed for all pro- cesses of tobacco growing, the negative impact of outmoded tobacco farming techniques can be largely avoided, which will help drive costs down. Therefore "lean farming" becomes a necessity as a byproduct of this process. When it comes to tobacco production, "lean management" means the division of tobacco- growing regions that were previously under a uni- fied comprehensive management umbrella into different blocks, and naturally, individualized man- agement of the different blocks in accordance with their different strengths and weaknesses. Such

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