Definition World Class Manufacturing. Description.
World Class Manufacturing is an umbrella term for a
set of concepts, principles, policies and techniques for managing and operating
a manufacturing company. This holistic approach to productivity, quality improvement
and customer service is driven by the results achieved by the Japanese manufacturing
resurgence following World War II, and adapts many of the ideas used by the
Japanese in automotive, electronics and steel companies to gain a competitive
edge.
World Class Manufacturing is a process-driven approach where implementations
usually involve the following philosophies and techniques:
Just-in-time, make-to-order,
Value Stream Mapping, small
lot sizes, families of parts,
Total Quality Management,
doing things right the first time,
Hoshin Kanri, cellular
manufacturing, Six Sigma, Total Productive
Maintenance, quick changeover, Zero
Defects, 8D Problem Solving,
variability reduction, high employee involvement, Cross-Functional Teams,
multi-skilled employees, visual signaling, Statistical Process Control,
Quality Function Deployment,
etc, etc.
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What are the Criteria for a World Class Manufacturer?
"World class manufacturers are those that demonstrate industry best practice. To achieve this companies should attempt to be best in the field at each of the competitive priorities:
- Quality
- Price
- Delivery speed
- Delivery reliability
- Flexibility
- Innovation
Organisations should aim to maximise performance in all of these areas in order to maximise competitiveness. Some ways to do that are:
1. Reduce time wasted in setting and reduce set up times - Particularly true for period batch control because the technique requires every part to be made every period, but it is beneficial in all circumstances to reduce batch sizes by reducing set up times on the bottleneck processes. There is little extra benefit in reducing set up times on non-bottleneck processes. The technique "Single Minute Exchange of Die" or "SMED" provides a structured approach to doing this.
2. Reduce throughput times
By far the easiest way of reducing throughput times is to reduce work in process (wip), it is fat although it may feel comfortable for the production supervisors." |
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World Class Manufacturing Special Interest Group
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World Class Manufacturing Sponsor
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Special Interest Group Leader
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