PROJECT RISK AND QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Project Risk and Quality Management



Project Risk and Quality Management

Business Activities

Establish a Material Order System (MOS)

Material order system and its descendents have had a pervasive effect on production and inventory management over the past three decades. In fact, the majority of manufacturing companies in the United States use (or have used) an MOS -based system for planning production and ordering parts. This section discusses the theory and evolution of MOS, its inputs and system logic, and a variety of relevant topics of concern to users. It also describes other related systems in the MOS family of systems (Oakland, 2003, pp. 45).

The key to understanding the theoretical basis of MOS is to first understand the two types of item demand: independent and dependent. Independent demand refers to the case where demand for each item is assumed to be unrelated to demand for other items. For example, if a firm manufactures bicycles, independent demand techniques for managing inventory ignore the fact that there are exactly two tires, one seat, one handlebar assembly, and the like on each bicycle. Instead, historical or forecasted demands are used for each part independently to determine the timing and quantity of orders (Ohldin, 2002, 350).

In contrast, dependent demand techniques recognize the direct link (dependence) between the production schedule for an end item and the need for parts and assemblies to support this schedule. Again using the simple example of a bicycle, if 10 bicycles are scheduled to be produced next Monday we know that we will need 20 tires. 10 seats, and so on. Although conceptually simple, data requirements and calculations can be substantial for complex products. Computations that took hours or even days 30 years ago therefore limited MOS's use until computing power began to catch up.

Reduce the Shop's Number of Racks and Bins

When running a number of parts in the system, bins or skids of raw material and finished pieces for each of the parts being run must be relatively close to the setup station to eliminate long walks by the operator to access the material. This is a fatigue factor and it makes loading of fixtures very slow. With this in mind, locating the setup stations between machines would make the storage of material and parts close to the setup station difficult. Locating the setup stations adjacent to the machines on the same side of the track is better, but one side of the area is still taken by the machines. Positioning the setup stations on the opposite side of the track next to the pallet stands—as shown here—is probably the best location for access. Don't put this area adjacent to an aisle because the material cannot be placed close to the loading station without blocking the aisle (Kongstvedt, 1996, 37).

For production of a limited number of heavy, larger parts being machined on a random basis, one method may be to consider putting each of the components on a gravity fed conveyor in front of the setup ...