The integration of supply chain value stream mapping and discrete event simulation for lead time reduction of warehouse operations in a pharmaceutical organization

The supply chain lead time build-up that occurs due to inventory handling inside the warehouse that comprises of a set of waiting time, queuing time, and unwanted delays creates difficulties in meeting demand shocks and third party stakeholder requirements. These problems consistently prevail and tend to evolve no matter how sophisticated production planning is done. In that case, a pharmaceutical warehouse supply chain inventory would be a real challenge to study or map to find out ways for further improvements. In this research, a Malaysian pharmaceutical company’s warehouse was considered for the study. After a detailed field work and literature gap inferences, a case study approach was considered to be the best methodology for this study. It was applied to find effective ways to introduce lean integrated simulation modelling using Supply Chain Value Stream Mapping (SCVSM) and Discrete Event Simulation (DES) to capture, record, analyze, and reduce inventory waiting time, delays, queues and other wastes for a selected particular product family. After several lean suggestions in the future state SCVSM, the results of this study show that there is a considerable improvement in the warehouse lead time. The production lead time and total process time has decreased by 51.43% and 44.41 % respectively. The total value-added time has increased by 29.21 % the non-value added time has decreased by 31.86 %. In the second segment, there was a 20.22 % increase in the value-added time and a 23.17 % decrease in the non-value added time. DES models were then developed to replicate the entire operations for the purpose of present and future state simulation along with the suggestions for improvements. This study proved to possess strong managerial and practical implications that shall help in better decision making by deeply understanding the supply chain activities that occur as discrete events inside a warehouse

Beyond Lean and the Working Environment

Lean Production System (LPS) has become very popular among manufacturing industries, services and large commercial areas over the years due to its production increase abilities. However, LPS practices can have both negative and positive impacts in worker’s psychosocial factors like motivation, satisfaction and commitment and physical and psychological health factor like musculoskeletal disorders (MSD) and stress. Since LPS is a very broad term, there is no simple relation between LPS implementation and its consequences over work environment and workers. Therefore, it is necessary to study the different factors that can affect the work environment in each case. A wide variety of LPS practices can have negative and positive impacts on workers. Furthermore, the effects of lean may also depend on the sector and country in which it is implemented. There are no studies in the literature that cover all these effects and analyse them together with the involved environment. In this study, articles were collected in scientific publications in the last 26 years and analysed. Results show that Just-in-Time (JIT) practices are strongly related with negative effects in MSDs and stress caused by intensification of work and increase of control over workers. However, JIT practices such as manufacturing cells can increase job enrichment trough multi-skilling. Respect for people practices can act as buffers to lean practices. Job rotation reduces human effort and work pace trough the increase of recovery time. Workgroups create job support acting as buffers to psychosocial factors. Results show a majority of negative effects in the automotive sector and in countries such as Canada, USA and UK. Scandinavian countries have implemented hybrid forms of Lean which are related to an increase in effects such as motivation and job satisfaction. However, the overall analysis is that the effects of lean on workers depend more on the way companies manage and implement it rather than the countries cultural factors. This study can be useful for managers and leaders who seek to transform traditional enterprises into exemplars of lean success, showing the need to balance lean and good working conditions

Measures from complexity science provide manufacturing companies with insights previously unavailable to them

"Operational effectiveness" is the means by which market leading value propositions are delivered to customers. The contribution of "operational effectiveness" in manufacturing to competitive strategy has been established. The "operational effectiveness" approach has been based on scientific reductionism, defining itself by list of "best practice" tools, techniques and philosophies. This thesis argues that this had led to loss of the "operational effectiveness" whole, causing variegated success in application of these tools. Complex systems SCience, with its origins in communications, control theory and non-linear dynamical systems, has provided previously unavailable insight into real-world systems. The applications to date in manufacturing have been in soft systems appearing either as metaphors or computationally difficult optimisation-type problems. This thesis argues that manufacturing companies are complex systems. As a result measures for complex behaviour and structure in these systems will yield fresh insight currently unavailable through the reductionist worldview of "operational effectiveness". This research proposes a new framework of agents that connects the "operational effective" and complex systems views, without the loss of system richness of the complexity worldview. This framework comprises interrelated sets of input/output Entities, produced through Activities carried out by Resources. Novel measures of flow efficacy and the structure of these set-based relationships are then obtained based on this common framework by the use of Entropy and QanalYSis respectively. A methodology for the creation of the framework, its measurement and validation is then proposed and tested. Three case studies have been carried out in the actual processes of a manufacturing company. The studies have been able to show a consistent benefit from the use of complexity-based measures over and above what would have been available from "operational effectiveness. Correlation and independence have been observed in the concurrent use of both complexity measures on the frameworks, demonstrating their independence and interdependence

Digital strategy implementation in process manufacturing firms: the Sirmax case.

The elaboration aims to investigate how to effectively implement a digital strategy in process manufacturing firms. After having analyzed literature and benchmark cases, the focus is on the digital strategy implementation proposal for Sirmax, a process manufacturing firm.ope

Production Engineering and Management

It is our pleasure to introduce the 8th edition of the International Conference on Production Engineering and anagement (PEM), an event that is the result of the joint effort of the OWL University of Applied Sciences and the University of Trieste. The conference has been established as an annual meeting under the Double Degree Master Program “Production Engineering and Management” by the two partner universities. This year the conference is hosted at the university campus in Lemgo, Germany. The main goal of the conference is to offer students, researchers and professionals in Germany, Italy and abroad, an opportunity to meet and exchange information, discuss experiences, specific practices and technical solutions for planning, design, and management of manufacturing and service systems and processes. As always, the conference is a platform aimed at presenting research projects, introducing young academics to the tradition of symposiums and promoting the exchange of ideas between the industry and the academy. This year’s special focus is on Supply Chain Design and Management in the context of Industry 4.0, which are currently major topics of discussion among experts and professionals. In fact, the features and problems of Industry 4.0 have been widely discussed in the last editions of the PEM conference, in which sustainability and efficiency also emerged as key factors. With the further study and development of Direct Digital Manufacturing technologies in connection with new Management Practices and Supply Chain Designs, the 8th edition of the PEM conference aims to offer new and interesting scientific contributions. The conference program includes 25 speeches organized in seven sessions. Two are specifically dedicated to “Direct Digital Manufacturing in the context of Industry 4.0”. The other sessions are covering areas of great interest and importance to the participants of the conference, which are related to the main focus: “Supply Chai n Design and Management”, “Industrial Engineering and Lean Management”, “Wood Processing Technologies and Furniture Production”, and “Management Practices and Methodologies”. The proceedings of the conference include the articles submitted and accepted after a careful double-blind refereeing process

The adoption of lean techniques to optimise the on-shelf availability of products and drive business performance in the food industry: a South African manufacturing and retail case study

Includes bibliographical references.The degree of sustaining business performance, while maintaining competitive costs, satisfied consumers and customers has become more difficult and harder to achieve. To date, both retailers and manufacturers are economically challenged as they enter into a new age and era that is characterised by a restructuring of the supply and demand known today, the one in which the consumer demand chain will both lead and direct all organisational processes. The greatest challenge in manufacturing and retail supply chains today continue to be the inconsistency of product availability. Both retailers and their manufacturers frequently find themselves in positions where they either have too much stock of specific stock-keeping units (SKUs) or insufficient stock levels of a particular SKU, Steve (2010). Retailers and their suppliers both seek to avoid the costly out-of-stock (OOS) situations, which result in lost revenue opportunity for both parties. OOS can also damage shopper loyalty as frustrated consumers might seek out alternative retailers for the same merchandise, while on the other hand suppliers' brand loyalty can be impacted if a competitor's product is substituted instead. It remains true that the two pillars of business, namely demand and supply, still rule. Traditionally, putting supply before demand, with its implied precedence, was the correct approach to apply, but in today's business environment, there is a major shift taking place, predominantly driven by the cycles in globalisation that would be faster than in the traditional way, oversupply in the fast -moving consumer goods industry, a parallel loss of pricing power, consumers with a twenty-four hours access to precise pricing information, which terminates the power of information scarcity, and shorter product life cycles. The global economic crash that represented a global economic storm led many organisations to rethink the manner in which organisations are led. A consensus exists among many authors and commentators that the emerging economic order has imposed changes to the very way companies are doing business

A framework for the integration of green and lean six sigma for superior sustainability performance

Evidence suggests that Lean, Six Sigma and Green approaches make a positive contribution to the economic, social and environmental (i.e. sustainability) performance of organizations. However, evidence also suggests that organizations have found their integration and implementation challenging. The purpose of this research is therefore to present a framework that methodically guides companies through a five stages and sixteen steps process to effectively integrate and implement the Green, Lean and Six Sigma approaches to improve their sustainability performance. To achieve this, a critical review of the existing literature in the subject area was conducted to build a research gap, and subsequently develop the methodological framework proposed. The paper presents the results from the application of the proposed framework in four organizations with different sizes and operating in a diverse range of industries. The results showed that the integration of Lean Six Sigma and Green helped the organizations to averagely reduce their resources consumption from 20% to 40% and minimize the cost of energy and mass streams by 7-12%. The application of the framework should be gradual, the companies should assess their weaknesses and strengths, set priorities, and identify goals for successful implementation. This paper is one of the very first researches that presents a framework to integrate Green and Lean Six Sigma at a factory level, and hence offers the potential to be expanded to multiple factories or even supply chains

The Heatex-Model - Multi-Cultural Business Process Development

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to develop a model for business process improvement that integrates national culture aspects to achieve sustainable performance improvement. Research questions: * How can national culture aspects be combined into a business process management model? * What is the difference between mapping methods? * How do they relate to each other and their intended scope? Research procedure: This project takes place from September 2014 to March 2015. During this time the researcher spent October – mid December at Heatex subsidiary in Shanghai, looking at the order to delivery process for the rotor production line. By first conducting a literary review of business process management, and development with a specific focus on business process mapping. This study has compared different business process mapping techniques into a business process management model that was applied to the case company. As an attempt to further understand a foreign process the Hofstede framework was also integrated into the business process management model. The idea was to better be able to predict the process reaction to changes and be able to develop a suggestions that could create sustainable change and improve overall performance. Results: The implemented improvements in the production process at Heatex Shanghai are: * A KPI system for measuring performance * A new and more efficient layout for the spinning line * Tool-belts and –carts Based on the experience and research procedure used in this study the Heatex model for multi-cultural process improvement were developed. It is a ten step model that combines previously established process management models with Hofstede’s model for culture dimensions: 1. Identified goal, opportunity or problem 2. Assemble team 3. Draw boundaries 4. Examine process 5. Evaluate issues 6. Find cause 7. Culture analysis 8. Develop solutions 9. Implement 10. Evaluate process Conclusions: The purpose of this study is to develop a model for business process improvement that integrates national culture aspects to achieve sustainable performance improvement. It is a growing need for companies to develop their processes that cross national and cultural boarders. The Heatex model presents a suggestion for how the Hofstede culture research can be applied to gain knowledge about a foreign culture. This can help to extract trustworthy data as well as be used as a tool to achieve sustainable process change. This study conducted a literary review over different mapping methods in order to further deepen the knowledge about process mapping. Based on this theory a theoretical model was developed for how to apply different process mapping techniques. By applying these mapping methods to Heatex Shanghai further conclusions could be drawn about how process mapping should be conducted. By answering the research questions this study provides an explanatory result between culture analysis and business process management, and within business process mapping