I am working for an appeal manufacturing company and the customers are pushing us to reduce lead times and increase flexibility. Does any one have as idea as to how we can approach this. I can give you specific details if need.
Thanks in advance.
That is usually done using some sort of a Six Sigma methodoligy process. Where you identify what your customers Critical issue items are. Then you need to measure your current process or processes and be able to put it down into numbers so you can statstically analyze it. At that point during the analysis you should see areas that need further investigating. After your investigation of these things you should be able to come up with things to improve on. After a improvement is implimented you then repeat the measurements to see if it helped or not. Ad infintum. It's important to note that you basically work to improve one thing at a time, not a bunch at the same time. Treat each single issue as a improvement project. Thus the most critical issue or improvement should be the first one to focus your attention on as it offers the greatest statistical improvement numbers.
The best way to do this would be generate process workflows for the ordering and delivery processes. The first step would be to document the workflows and then analyse them with your customers to see places where you can remove the slack within your organization and in your interactions with the customers and suppliers.
For examples of workflows, see the following URL:
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There are several methods for doing this. Each has its merits, and each has worked wonders in some cases. You've heard about six sigma, and work flows, consider system dynamics, lean manufacturing, and reengineering. None of the tools are exclusive of one another, and indeed they all have a bit of overlap. The tools you user are going to be based upon the particulars of your situation, and what will work within the philosophy and capabilities of your organization.
Michael
The idea's presented so far are required, but since this is a controls group you posted to I will assume you are looking for related solutions?
Look into MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) solutions like using SCADA or DCS to get data from and provide supervisory routing and scheduling control and tracking of orders, raw materials, item production status (counts) and shipping status. While also tracking your QA data to give almost real time early warnings of problems by using SPC, 6 sigma and other methods to evaluate and correct production per the results. In general this will be based on a central database system, like SQL that is connected to the factory(s) equipment via SCADA or DCS and also to office systems for ordering, shipping, QA and other functions.
It all boils down to a stitch in time saves 9. It is an evolving and continuous process.
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