09-04-2014, 10:50 AM
RESPONSIVE MANUFACTURING A SEMINAR REPORT
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INTRODUCTION
The major forces influencing today's manufacturing environments are already apparent: global competition; shortened product life cycle; increasing requirements for quality and reliability; faster-paced advances in increasingly complex technology, rapidly expanding options in materials and processes, increased unpredictability of surroundings and changes in demand. Changes in demand are a market characteristic, driven by several factors, some of which cannot be influenced by the company. These changes can provide commercial opportunities for those companies able to respond quickly. The ability of an enterprise to take advantage of rather than be destroyed by these forces is the key ingredient of any successful manufacturing strategy. In order to create the kind of radical transformational change that is required to respond to today's market challenges, a new strategic reorientation is needed.
In addition to the now mature manufacturing paradigms of flexible and lean manufacturing, many new ideas and concepts have recently been proposed for shaping the next generation of manufacturing systems. In spite of attracting much attention from industrial practitioners and academic researchers alike many of the new manufacturing paradigms are still in the process of being defined, and a more robust foundation to aid the transformation to the "factory of the future" is still to be defined. The overriding goal of the "manufacturing enterprise of the future", however, remains essentially unchanged. It has to achieve rapid, flexible and integrated development and manufacture of innovative products at a price the customer is prepared to pay. To thrive in the emerging market conditions it has to be capable of responding rapidly to market trends and operating as an efficient member of an extended and increasingly global supply network.
BRIEF HISTORY
In the early 20th century, Henry Ford introduced the well-known mass production system. Ford’s philosophy was to build a simple, low cost, and fully utilized assembly line system. Such a mass production system was very inflexible and not responsive to changing customer demands. It relied on forecasting future customer demand and scheduling the release of orders. This system often resulted in high work-in-process levels and excess finished inventories. In the 1980s, the Toyota production system or just-in-time (JIT) system was first developed to provide better flexibility through the concept of pull within the factory. JIT production depended on actual customer demand activating the release of orders into the system to fill the demand. The JIT philosophy emphasized on making the right products in the right amount at the right time. JIT eliminated excess inventory, shortened production lead-time, and increased quality in both products and customer service. In the 1990s, companies began to implement the concept of lean manufacturing that evolved from the Toyota production system. Lean manufacturing is a comprehensive philosophy where employees continue to strive for improvement to eliminate all non-value added activities. Although JIT or lean manufacturing had significant culture impact to improve production efficiency, their system performance measures are restricted under steady-state conditions. In the 21st century, due to the highly fluctuating market demand and the frequent change of product designs, to stay competitive in this global market, manufacturing companies must possess a new kind of manufacturing system that can be very responsive to volatile global markets.
QUICK RESPONSE MANUFACTURING
Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) is a companywide strategy to reduce lead times across an enterprise. It can bring the products to market more quickly and secure the business prospects in a rapidly changing manufacturing arena. It will increase profitability by reducing non–value–added time, cutting inventory and increasing return on investment.
It emphasizes the beneficial effect of reducing internal and external lead times. Shorter lead times improve quality, reduce cost and eliminate non-value-added waste within the organization while simultaneously increasing the organization’s competitiveness and market share by serving customers better and faster. The time-based framework of QRM accommodates strategic variability such as offering custom-engineered products while eliminating dysfunctional variability such as rework and changing due dates. For this reason, companies making products in low or varying volumes have used QRM as an alternative or to complement other strategies such as Lean Manufacturing, Total Quality Management, Six Sigma or Kaizen.
Successful Responsive Manufacturing Enterprise.
A successful responsive manufacturing enterprise will be able to flourish in future. A top-notch competitor should include new modes and principles of operation with tactical focus on setting action courses created to accomplish perfect balance between responsiveness to modify and stability under situations of uncertainty. On one hand, this vital balance of responses is formed to permit the enterprise to make use of its unique core competences to accomplish incessant enhancement, development, and profitability. Alternatively, it ascertains success of the enterprise in dealing with environmental disturbances through its modifying proficiency and adaptability. To be successful in this, the enterprise has to do extremely well in faultlessly integrating its organizational, technological, and human resources.
In short, responsive manufacturing calls for precise alignment of production control techniques to business drivers. The result is shorter production time, improved overall dynamic behaviour of system, minimum inventory build-up and cost, and finally good customer satisfaction.
RESPONSIVENESS
Manufacturing responsiveness relates to the ability of manufacturing systems to make a rapid and balanced response to the predictable and unpredictable changes that characterize today's manufacturing environments. The "responsive manufacturing enterprise", the enterprise that is able to thrive in the future, the world-class competitor, has to encompass new principles and modes of operation. Its strategic focus should be based on setting courses of action designed to achieve balance between stability under conditions of uncertainty and responsiveness to change. This critical balance of enterprise responses is designed on the one hand to allow the manufacturing enterprise to use its distinctive core competences to achieve continuous improvement, profitability and growth. On the other, it ensures enterprise success in coping with disturbances in its environment through its adaptability and change proficiency. To achieve this, the enterprise has to excel in seamlessly integrating, "gluing" together, its technological, organizational and human resources.
CONCLUSION
Today Quick Response Manufacturing is used by a variety of companies from different sectors worldwide. As an enterprise wide strategy, QRM has found applications in all areas of the company from shop floor to office operations to supply chain and beyond.
Many companies use QRM to address lead time issues in some parts of their organization or as an addition to existing continuous improvement efforts such as Lean, Six Sigma or others.
Most of the industries have transformed their entire operation according to QRM principles making full use of Responsive Manufacturing’s enterprise wide reach.
In a 2008 article in Barron’s magazine profiling the five companies most successful at boosting their sales and cash flow from among the 500 largest publicly traded companies in the U.S. and Canada, Merrill Miller, chairman and CEO of National Oilwell Varco (NOV) mentions improved manufacturing efficiencies based on QRM as a large part of NOV’s growth.
In recent years, QRM principles have also found applications in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. Therefore on an overall basis Responsive Manufacturing has helped enterprises on adding value to their efforts and achieve success in business firm.