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).
Lean manufacturing is only as good as its weakest link. In one case, a two-plant company improved its overall service level from 77 to 90 percent as a result of traveling part of the way toward full implementation of lean manufacturing.