Agile Manufacturing

What will be covered • Introduction • What is Agile Manufacturing • Why do we need to be agile • Key to Agility and Flexibility • Agile Manufacturing in a company • Four Core Concepts • Nuts and Bolts • Interdisciplinary Design • How can we make the transition • Real world example • Summary

Introduction

• Manufacturing industry is on the verge of a major paradigm shift. This shift will take us away from mass production, way beyond lean manufacturing, into a world of Agile Manufacturing

What is Agile Manufacturing?

• Agile manufacturing is a method for manufacturing which combine an organization, people and technology into an integrated and coordinated whole.

Why do we need to be agile

• Global Competition is intensifying.

• Mass markets are fragmenting into niche markets.

• Cooperation among companies is becoming necessary, including companies who are in direct competition with each other.

Why do we need to be agile cont:

• Customers are expecting: 1. Low volume products

2. High quality products

3. Custom products

• Very short product life-cycles, development time, and production lead times are required.

• Customers want to treated and individuals

Keys to agility and flexibility

• To determine customer needs quickly and continuously reposition the company against it’s competitors.

• To design things quickly based on those individual needs.

• To put them into full scale, quality , production quickly.

• To respond to changing volumes and mix quickly.

• To respond to a crisis quickly.

Agile manufacturing in a company

• Customer-integrated process for designing, manufacturing, marketing, and supporting all products and services.

• Decision making at functional knowledge points not in centralized management “silos”

• Stable unit costs, no matter what the volume

• Flexible Manufacturing-ability to increase or decrease production volumes at will.

Agile manufacturing in a company cont.

• Easy access to integrated data whether it is customer-driven, supplier-driven, or product and process-driven

• Modular production facilities that can be organized into ever changing manufacturing nodes.

• Data that is rapidly changed into information that is used to expand knowledge.

• Mass customized product verses mass produced product.

Four core concepts 1. A strategy to become an Agile Manufacturing enterprise.

2. A strategy to exploit agility to achieve competitive advantage.

3. Integration of organization, people and technology into a coordinated interdependent system which is a competitive advantage.

4. An interdisciplinary design methodology to achieve the integration of Organization, people and technology.

Nuts and Bolts

• Enriching the customer

1. Replace large centralized with distributed clusters of mini-assembly plants located near customers.

• Cooperating to enhance competition.

1. Internal—cross-functional teams, empowerment.

2. External—managing the supply chain.

Nuts and Bolts

• Organizing to manage change and uncertainty

1. Rapid reconfiguration of plant and facilities.

2. Rapid decision making-shallow empowered.

• Leveraging people and information.

1. Distribution of authority, resources, and rewards.

Interdisciplinary Design Interdisciplinary design will form the basis of designing

Agile Manufacturing systems in the new knowledge intensive era.

Interdisciplinary design is one of the most important challenges to that managers and systems designers and integrators will face in the years ahead, it leads us to new approaches and new ways of working and of thinking.

Interdisciplinary Design To successfully adopt an interdisciplinary design

method, we need to:

• Challenge our accepted design strategies and develop new and better approaches.

• Question our established and cherished beliefs and theories, and develop new ones to replace those that know longer have any validity.

Interdisciplinary Design • Consider how we address organization, people and

technology, and other issues in the design of manufacturing systems, so we can have systems that are better for performance, better for the environment, and better for the people .

• Go beyond the automation paradigm of the industrial era, to use technology in a way that makes human skill, knowledge, and intelligence more effective and productive, and that allows us to tap into the creativity and talent of all people.

transition to Agile manufacturing?

• Make the break with the things that are wrong with the way we do things today.

• Examine and define the underlying conceptual framework on which Agile Manufacturing enterprises will be built.

Making the transition cont.

• Explore and understand the nature of the mass production paradigm and the nature of the cultural and methodological difficulties involved in the transition to Agile Manufacturing.

• Define a methodology for designing a 21st century manufacturing enterprise.

Real world example: • The Industry: Japanese car makers

• The goal: To produce the three day car, (three days from customer order for a customized car to dealer delivery)

Real world ex. Cont. The Challenges:

• The challenges: 1. Break dependency on scale and economies of scale

(reducing setup costs in key). 2. Produce vehicles in low volumes at a reasonable cost. 3. Guarantee the three day car. 4. Replace large centralized with distributed clusters of

mini-assembly plants located near customers. 5. Be able to reconfigure components in many different

ways.

Real world ex. Cont. The Challenges:

1. Make work stimulating. 2. Turn the customer into a “prosumer,”; the idea is that

the customer will take an active role in the product design by, for example, configuring options at a computer in a dealer showroom.

3. Streamline ordering systems and establish close relationships with suppliers.

4. Manage the massive volumes of data generated by the production system so as to be able to analyze that data quickly and agilely

Summary Agile Manufacturing enterprises will be capable of rapidly

responding to changes in customer demand. They will be able to take advantage of the windows of opportunities that appear in the market place. With Agile Manufacturing we will be able to develop new ways of interacting with customers and suppliers. Our customers will not only be able to gain access to our products and services, but will also be able to easily assess and exploit competencies, so enabling them to use these competencies to achieve the things that they are seeking. (5)