For other uses, see Tile (disambiguation). A tile is a manufactured piece of hard-wearing material such as ceramic, stone, metal, or even glass, generally used for covering roofs, floors, walls, showers, or other objects such as tabletops.
Model of the lean production system. Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply lean, is a systematic method for the elimination of waste (Muda) within a manufacturing system. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden (Muri) and waste created through unevenness in work loads (Mura).
Adherents range from Pratt & Whitney, a division of $31 billion United Technologies Corp., a maker of building systems and aerospace products, to Lantech Inc., a $70 million Louisville, Kentucky-based manufacturer of packaging equipment. Lean manufacturing principles differ from mass production in several key ways. For starters, the latter typically concentrates on efficiency and machine utilization, which can lead to long run times and bloated inventory levels.