5,103 research outputs found
Applications of lean thinking: a briefing document
This report has been put together by the Health and Care Infrastructure Research and Innovation Centre (HaCIRIC) at the University of Salford for the Department of Health.
The need for the report grew out of two main simple questions,
o Is Lean applicable in sectors other than manufacturing?
o Can the service delivery sector learn from the success of lean in manufacturing and realise the benefits of its implementation?The aim of the report is to list together examples of lean thinking as it is evidenced in the
public and private service sector. Following a review of various sources a catalogue of evidence is put together in an organised manner which demonstrates that Lean principles
and techniques, when applied rigorously and throughout an entire organization/unit, they can have a positive impact on productivity, cost, quality, and timely delivery of services
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Strategic, tactical decisions and information in Rapid Manufacturing supply chain
The efficiency and agility of its supply chain is vital to the commercial success of any product. Sharing strategic and tactical information effectively within the supply chain is often a key factor in achieving this goal. This paper proposes a framework to identify strategic, tactical decisions and information. The framework is used to conduct a sector based analysis of the Rapid Manufacturing (RM) industry. The decisions and information identified include amongst others various supply chain strategies and technical information
Agility and Responsiveness Capabilities: Impact on Supply Chain Performance
This paper focuses on exploring the mediation role of supply chain responsiveness, supply chain agility, and supply chain performance link through a multi-disciplinary review of the relevant research. The systematic literature review aims to provide the basis for formulating a conceptual framework of the relationships. A systematic comprehensive review of the literature on supply chain agility, supply chain responsiveness, and supply chain performance was conducted. The dynamic capabilities perspective literature was also examined to identify the theoretical basis for the contribution of supply chain agility in improving supply chain performance by reconfiguring supply chain responsiveness. The supply chain agility has been mainly explored in the literature with emphasis on the dimensions of the concept. The role of the supply chain agility, as a dynamic capability, in the reconfiguration of the supply chain responsiveness is seen in its quality of operational capability and, consequently, in the improvement of the performance of the supply chain in general
The relevance of outsourcing and leagile strategies in performance optimization of an integrated process planning and scheduling
Over the past few years growing global competition has forced the manufacturing industries to upgrade their old production strategies with the modern day approaches. As a result, recent interest has been developed towards finding an appropriate policy that could enable them to compete with others, and facilitate them to emerge as a market winner. Keeping in mind the abovementioned facts, in this paper the authors have proposed an integrated process planning and scheduling model inheriting the salient features of outsourcing, and leagile principles to compete in the existing market scenario. The paper also proposes a model based on leagile principles, where the integrated planning management has been practiced. In the present work a scheduling problem has been considered and overall minimization of makespan has been aimed. The paper shows the relevance of both the strategies in performance enhancement of the industries, in terms of their reduced makespan. The authors have also proposed a new hybrid Enhanced Swift Converging Simulated Annealing (ESCSA) algorithm, to solve the complex real-time scheduling problems. The proposed algorithm inherits the prominent features of the Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and the Fuzzy Logic Controller (FLC). The ESCSA algorithm reduces the makespan significantly in less computational time and number of iterations. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm has been shown by comparing the results with GA, SA, Tabu, and hybrid Tabu-SA optimization methods
Reconfiguration of supply chain network:an ISM-based roadmap to performance
Purpose: Short product life cycle and/or mass customization necessitate reconfiguration of operational enablers of supply chain (SC) from time to time in order to harness high levels of performance. The purpose of this paper is to identify the key operational enablers under stochastic environment on which practitioner should focus while reconfiguring a SC network. Design/methodology/approach: The paper used interpretive structural modeling (ISM) approach that presents a hierarchy-based model and the mutual relationships among the enablers. The contextual relationship needed for developing structural self-interaction matrix (SSIM) among various enablers is realized by conducting experiments through simulation of a hypothetical SC network. Findings: The research identifies various operational enablers having a high driving power towards assumed performance measures. In this regard, these enablers require maximum attention and of strategic importance while reconfiguring SC. Practical implications: ISM provides a useful tool to the SC managers to strategically adopt and focus on the key enablers which have comparatively greater potential in enhancing the SC performance under given operational settings. Originality/value: The present research realizes the importance of SC flexibility under the premise of reconfiguration of the operational units in order to harness high value of SC performance. Given the resulting digraph through ISM, the decision maker can focus the key enablers for effective reconfiguration. The study is one of the first efforts that develop contextual relations among operational enablers for SSIM matrix through integration of discrete event simulation to ISM. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Innovative configurable and collaborative approach to automation systems engineering for automotive powertrain assembly
Presently the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global
competition and ever changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Both,
agility and reconfiguration are widely recognised as important attributes for
manufacturing systems to satisfy the needs of competitive global markets. To facilitate
and accommodate unforeseen business changes within the automotive industry, a new
proactive methodology is urgently required for the design, build, assembly and
reconfiguration of automation systems. There is also need for the promotion of new
technologies and engineering methods to enable true engineering concurrency between
product and process development. Virtual construction and testing of new automation
systems prior to build is now identified as a crucial requirement to enable system
verification and to allow the investigation of design alternatives prior to building and
testing physical systems. The main focus of this research was to design and develop
reconfigurable assembly systems within the powertrain sector of the automotive
industry by capturing and modelling relevant business and engineering processes.
This research has proposed and developed a more process-efficient and robust
automation system design, build and implementation approach via new engineering
services and a standard library of reusable mechanisms. Existing research at
Loughborough had created the basic technology for a component based approach to
automation. However, no research had been previously undertaken on the application of
this approach in a user engineering and business context. The objective of this research
was therefore to utilise this prototype method and associated engineering tools and to
devise novel business and engineering processes to enable the component-based
approach to be applied in industry. This new approach has been named Configurable
and Collaborative Automation Systems (CO AS). In particular this new research has
studied the implications of migration to a COAS approach in terms of I) necessary
changes to the end-users business processes, 2) potential to improve the robustness of
the resultant system and 3) potential for improved efficiency and greater collaboration
across the supply chain... cont'
Product to process lifecycle management in assembly automation systems
Presently, the automotive industry is facing enormous pressure due to global competition and ever
changing legislative, economic and customer demands. Product and process development in the
automotive manufacturing industry is a challenging task for many reasons. Current product life
cycle management (PLM) systems tend to be product-focussed. Though, information about
processes and resources are there but mostly linked to the product. Process is an important aspect,
especially in assembly automation systems that link products to their manufacturing resources. This
paper presents a process-centric approach to improve PLM systems in large-scale manufacturing
companies, especially in the powertrain sector of the automotive industry. The idea is to integrate
the information related to key engineering chains i.e. products, processes and resources based upon
PLM philosophy and shift the trend of product-focussed lifecycle management to process-focussed
lifecycle management, the outcome of which is the Product, Process and Resource Lifecycle
Management not PLM only
"The Shift from Belt Conveyor Line to Work-cell Based Assembly Systems to Cope with Increasing Demand Variation and Fluctuation in The Japanese Electronics Industries"
As consumption patterns become increasingly sophisticated and manufacturers strive to improve their competitiveness, not only offering higher quality at competitive costs, but also by providing broader mix of products, and keeping it attractive by launching successively new products, the turbulence in the markets has intensified. This has impelled leading manufacturers to search the development of alternative production systems supposed to enable them operate more responsively. This paper discusses the trend of abandoning the strategy of relying on factory automation technologies and conveyor-based assembly lines, and shifting towards more human-centered production systems based on autonomous work-cells, observed in some industries in Japan (e.g. consumer electronics, computers, printers) since mid-1990s. The purpose of this study is to investigate this trend which is seemingly uneconomic to manufacturers established in a country where labor costs are among the highest in the world, so as to contribute in the elucidation of its background and rationality. This work starts with a theoretical review linking the need to cope with nowadays' market turbulence with the issue of nurturing more agile organizations. Then, a general view of the diffusion trend of work-cell based assembly systems in Japanese electronics industries is presented, and some empirical facts gathered in field studies conducted in Japan are discussed. It is worthy mentioning that the abandonment of short cycle-time tasks performed along conveyor lines and the organization of workforce around work-cells do not imply a rejection of the lean production paradigm and its distinctive process improvement approach. High man-hour productivity is realized as a key goal to justify the implementation of work-cells usually devised to run in longer cycle-time, and the moves towards this direction has been strikingly influenced by the kaizen philosophy and techniques that underline typical initiatives of lean production system implementation. Finally, it speculates that even though the subject trend is finding wide diffusion in the considered industries, it should not be regarded as a panacea. In industries such as manufacturing of autoparts, despite the notable product diversification observed in the automobile market, its circumstances have still allowed the firms to rely on capital-intensive process, and this has sustained the development of advanced manufacturing technologies that enable the agile implementation and re-configuration of highly automated assembly lines.
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