Just in Time - 2nd Edition - sample text
CONTENTS
1 Introduction
The fate of new concepts, Overview of JIT, Scope of the book, Case examples, Western attempts to compete with Japan, Some Western experiences with JIT, Planning for JIT, JIT-related concepts
2. Basic principles.
Incoming goods, Factory stocks, Finished goods warehouse, Summary.
3. The process of improvement.
Motivation, Chronic and sporadic problems, Universal problem-solving sequence, The improvement process and JIT: a case study, Summary.
4. The design aspects.
The role of design, Design: a hatchery for JIT problems, Design review as a factor in JIT, Reliability in design, Summary.
5. The manufacturing aspects.
The importance of design to production, Quality in production, Process capability, Western supplier relationships, Japanese supplier relationships, Location of suppliers for JIT, Summary.
6. Involving the workforce.
Types of project team for process improvement, The `no blame' concept, The closed feedback loop of control, Getting started, Project teams: role in JIT, Pioneers of JIT-related concepts, Summary.
7. Motivation.
Motivation means people, Upper management, Middle management, Technical specialists, Foremen and supervisors, Direct employees, Trade union response to JIT, Summary.
8. Advance planning.
Evaluation of alternative approaches, Report from study team, Planning the system, Planning for internal customer/supplier relationships, The quality manual, The quality plan, Planning and re-planning, Summary.
9. Organization.
Process design team, JIT policy, The policy statement, Project team facilitator, Project sponsor, Team leaders, Conclusion.
10 Total Productive Maintenance.
Overall Equipment Effectiveness, The `six big losses', 5S/5C housekeeping programmes, Getting started with TPM, The TPM Steering Committee, The TPM Facilitator, , Initial projects, Typical TPM implementation plan, Multi-skilling, Recognition, JIT assessment, US National and European Quality Awards, The European Excellence Model. Conclusion.
I INTRODUCTION
Imagine a manufacturing plant or continuous process operation of any description similar to your own but with no finished goods inventory, no stock yard, no so-called 'work-in-progress' (if it were progressing it would not be a problem), no unscheduled stoppages or breakdowns, no waiting time, no rework, set-up times almost non-existent and all processes running at full speed all of the scheduled operating time. What would be the costs of running such an operation if it were producing the same goods as your own in the same quantities? How much floor space would be required? How much labour? How much raw material? How much plant? What would be the lead times if every product went from first operation through to finishing with no hold-ups at all? What would be the credit period for payments on such rapid order processing? How much bigger share of market would you be able to take if your customers were able to see this effect?
What are the equivalent costs of running your operation as it is today? What is the difference?
Unless you are already operating according to the principles laid down in this book, the chances are that the differences will be enormous. Of course, you might say: `The differences are big but that does not mean that they are too big. We employ top professional production and industrial engineers who spend their lives trying to improve processes and to drive down costs. We could probably make some improvements but nothing that would be that dramatic. If this were possible, we would have seen it already and have made the improvements.'
Do not believe it.
There are many companies that thought just that. Until, that is, they visited Japan, or some other place where these principles had been adopted. For example, the managers of a medium-sized electronics company which manufactures small transceivers in the UK made the trip to Toyota. There they saw huge metal forming dies for the shaping of the main body parts being changed in less than two minutes. They were aware that in the West the same operation took approximately one shift to complete.
In their own company, the change of dies for the stamping of the almost microscopic components of their products also took several hours. However, from the Toyota example, they found a way to reduce the time to just one minute forty-five seconds! The effect on production was dramatic. Prior to the improvement, the economic batch sizes for the small parts were in the order of
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hundreds of thousands of units to justify the long set-up times. Now, due to the improvement, it became possible to make only enough to keep the next downstream operation in good supply. As a result, an entire room was released from being used as a store to being available for an increase in productive capacity. Examples such as this can be found throughout industry today.
Included in this edition of Just in Time for the first time are two new chapters. One of these explains the concept of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM); whilst this has existed in Japan since 1971, it has been slow to spread to the West. The reason for this is that it requires the development of Quality Circle-style autonomous workgroup activities before it can be fully effective. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons that will be explained in the relevant chapter, the West has not found it easy to develop such initiatives. However, some organizations are managing to do so and there is no practical reason why the same should not be possible elsewhere provided the will is there to succeed. The other new chapter shows how JIT can influence the scoring of the European Quality Award and where it fits the criteria. This could be a useful chapter for the would-be JIT-based organization to evaluate its own level of achievement.
Just taking the Total Productive Maintenance aspect of JIT production, the following comments have been made:
`Companies that have embraced TPM have good reason to be sold on it: it's one of the surest ways to increase capacity while lowering costs. Process industries should be particularly interested in TPM, because it's easy to rack up huge losses when you're running a continuous, integrated process.' - Raymond Floy, Exxon Chemical Baytown Site Manager, Internet source.
`We've set a goal to double shareholder value by our two-hundredth anniversary in 2002. The only way we'll achieve that goal is by improving equipment reliability through focus on the elements of TPM.' - Doug Martin, TPM Manager at Dupont.
`Twenty per cent of our machines are very old - 35-40 years old - but with TPM we can still use them very well - as well as our new machines.'- Nissan Yokohama Plant.
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In two years from the introduction of TPM the Nissan plant reduced stoppages to the line from 9 000 per month to 1284!
Why TPM? It was developed in Japan in the early 1970s as an adaptation of the highly successful Quality Circles concept. With TPM the workers were able to focus their attention on process-related improvement opportunities. It is often said in Japan that if you look after the process, the product will look after itself. Manufacturers such as Toyota were trying to create `Just in Time' supply chains. With virtually no buffer stocks to fall back on, production personnel were under great pressure to supply a constant stream of high-quality goods. Unexpected breakdowns would snap the supply chain. From being `inevitable', breakdowns suddenly became `unacceptable'. The challenge was - how to smooth the ups and downs of the production lines?
Because of the awesome power of the TPM concept, this edition of, Just in Time devotes a whole chapter to its features.
In the same chapter, reference will be made to the Theory of Constraints developed by Ezra Goldratt and expounded in his book The Goal, also published by Gower. Under this theory it is suggested that all inventory is created by bottlenecks. If the bottlenecks are removed, the inventory disappears. In the following chapters it will be shown that JIT is most effective when it is operated throughout the entire supply chain and, in particular, in our own operation. In effect, the JIT supply chain appears as a completely vertically integrated process. This is an important point because many people wrongly believe that JIT is something that we impose on our suppliers but do nothing about ourselves. There should be no imposition on suppliers as such. The truly JIT company treats its suppliers as being part of a mutually dependent chain. This implies long-term relationships with preferred suppliers rather than adversarial relationships through multiple sourcing.
Each chapter in this book is designed to cover a specific aspect of JIT, the only exception being Chapters 4 and 5, which together deal with the totally linked aspects of design and manufacture. Discussion of these topics has been divided into two chapters solely with the aim of making their assimilation simpler. Each chapter begins by outlining its main theme and concludes with a summary of the main considerations related to JIT.
The main object of the book is to provide the reader with, first, a vision of what is currently being achieved with JIT internationally, and then to lead the reader, chapter by chapter, through the philosophy and concepts to a final discussion of the organizational aspects which must be considered by those who decide to implement the processes involved.
Virtually all the case examples are included in this chapter, the object being to provide an insight into the extraordinary potential offered by concepts related to JIT. As the reader progresses through the book, it might prove beneficial to refer back to these case examples from time to time, as their relevance becomes more apparent. Reading the text, it will become apparent that, .............
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