LEAN OPERATIONS ASSIGNMENT

Lean Operations Assignment

Lean Operations Assignment

Today, businesses are improving their supply chains through better information engineering. Starting in the early 1970s, Japanese manufacturers like Toyota changed the rules of production from mass to lean. Lean manufacturing focuses on flexibility and quality more than on efficiency and quantity. Significant lean manufacturing ideas include six-sigma quality control, just-in-time inventory, and total quality management. Just-in-time (JIT) means that, in a flow process, the right parts needed in assembly reach the assembly line at the time they needed. Toyota establishing this flow throughout can approach zero inventory. From a production management point of view this is an ideal state. However, with a product made from thousands of parts like a car, the number of processes involved is enormous. (Baljko, L. 2006)

It is extremely difficult to apply JIT to the production plan of every process in an orderly way. Therefore to manufacture using JIT so that each process receives the exact item needed, when it is needed and in the quantity needed, conventional management methods do not work well. The conventional way (and the way GM manufactures) was to supply materials from an earlier process to a later process. Just-In-Time (henceforth as JIT) is an integrated manufacturing process developed to attain high-volume production by utilizing the lowest possible levels of inventory. A JIT system sustains parts flow in order that inventories do not build up at any point of the manufacturing process, enabling rapid completion and demanding active management involvement. Each company has different JIT system, which is developed in such way to fit the organizational needs. Nevertheless, all JIT systems have two characteristics in common: the utilization of processes that systematically detect any operational inefficiency, and the exercise of apparatus for quick response to the recognized problems. In addition, the JIT systems oblige functional synchronization of many elements such as lean production, total quality, flexible material and human resources, aggressive maintenance, dependable suppliers, quick production setups and operational regulation. Aquilano et al. (2001) suggests that the JIT system is set in motion only when there is actual demand for goods or services. For instance, when JIT firm faces a demand for its product, the system either by using labor or machine means defines the required finished-good quantity and then "pulls" it from the production line or the available "safety stock". The prior "pull" approach is contrasting to the traditional "push" one. JIT does not support, nor reinforces large batch volume, which is completely opposite to the traditional inventory systems. This indicates that any company, regardless of its size, can incorporate JIT to any of theirs repetitive manufacturing fragment (Aquilano et al., 2001). Further, JIT struggles for sustenance of minimal levels of all types of inventories: raw materials, works-in-progress, and finished goods. Toyota uses the reverse; a later process goes to an earlier process to pick up only the right part in the quantity needed at the exact time needed. This makes it logical for the earlier processes to make only the number of parts ...