In the past, economies of scale ruled the manufacturing world and everybody knew that mass production and full utilization of plant capacity was the way to make money. This style of manufacturing resulted in inflexible plants that could not be easily reconfigured, and were associated with swollen raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventories. Since the early 1980s, in pursuit of greater flexibility, elimination of excess in inventory, shortened lead-times, and advanced levels of quality in both products and customer service, industry analysts have popularized the terms `world-class manufacturing’ and lean production’ .
The aim is to generate a framework that will reduce wastes and subsequently increase the flexibility in production. Customer Demand Uncertainty including lean and agile paradigms has been widely investigated so far and there are available research studies regarding this area.
In the past, economies of scale ruled the manufacturing world and everybody knew that mass production and full utilization of plant capacity was the way to make money. This style of manufacturing resulted in inflexible plants that could not be easily reconfigured, and were associated with swollen raw materials, work-in-process and finished goods inventories. Since the early 1980s, in pursuit of greater flexibility, elimination of excess in inventory, shortened lead-times, and advanced levels of quality in both products and customer service, industry analysts have popularized the terms `world-class manufacturing’ and lean production’ .
The aim is to generate a framework that will reduce wastes and subsequently increase the flexibility in production. Customer Demand Uncertainty including lean and agile paradigms has been widely investigated so far and there are available research studies regarding this area.
To compete effectively in the global marketplace of the twenty-first century, manufacturing companies are trying to maintain a high level of flexibility and responsiveness to achieve agility and to remain competitive. Manufacturers are under tremendous pressure to improve productivity and quality while reducing costs. The new competition is in terms of reduced cost, improved quality products with higher performance, a wider range of products and better services all delivered simultaneously to enhance value to customers. In such environment providing good quality product at low cost for a medium scale industry has become very tough. To provide good quality product at low cost, small industries need a formulation of some manufacturing approaches like agile manufacturing to manufacture defect free products within their materials cost limit. Medium scale steel manufacturing industries are facing problems of higher rejections in form of wastes so as to increase their cost. This blog aims to analyze the application of agile manufacturing in Medium scale steel manufacturing industries in order to reduce wastages through implementing lean tools and techniques. An agility audit questionnaire is used for assessing the agility level of the company to identify the current level of performance within the company with respect to the key elements of agility. MSI’s agile experience is reported including a list of recommendation for improving its competitiveness to offer solution alternatives not only to the current problems but also to the ones that may be encountered in the future.
Once companies pinpoint the major sources of waste, tools such as continuous improvement, autonomous maintenance, just in time, fishbone diagram and others will guide companies through corrective actions so as to eliminate waste. Continuous Improvement is another fundamental principle of lean manufacturing. One of the effective tools for continuous improvement is 5S, which is the basis for an effective lean company. Japanese name of Autonomous maintenance is JISHU HOZEN. This pillar is geared towards developing operators to be able to take care of small maintenance tasks, thus freeing up the skilled maintenance people to spend time on more value added activity and technical repairs. Cellular manufacturing is one of the cornerstones when one wants to become lean. The Fishbone Diagram is an easy to use and effective cause and effect technique developed by Kauoru Ishikawa.
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