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Highlights of our full range of training courses / Workshops:Lean & Agile Supply Chain / Inventory Modelling Lean & Agile Manufacturing Planning & Control Operations Management / Team Leader Training Step Change Management / Business Process Reengineering Procurement (Purchasing & Supplier Management) Product Management / New Product Introduction / Quality Management
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Relevant Training Course / In-house Workshop Highlights:
SSC07 Strategic Supply Chain Management
S02 Business Process Reengineering
S03 Vision of a World Class Organisation
S04 Strategic Capacity Management
Expert Systems / Tools:Agile Manufacturing Self Diagnosis
Relevant Further Reading: The following further articles were mentioned in this paper:a. Permanently Maintained Website Articles: Materials Management and Stock Control Business Process Re-engineering New Product Development & Introduction
b. Previously Featured Articles from our Archives (Up to 2 per organisation available on request): T007: "CARAP" (Process effectiveness measurement, or why OEE / OME is for the birds) M005: Economic Batch Quantity EBQ / EOQ: The worst way to set batch sizes M007: The Cost of the Costing System (Or why you do not understand your product costs, however sophisticated your costing system is, without firstly simplifying the process.)
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Agile Manufacturing
This article describes key attributes required for you to become "Agile". (The phrases "Efficient Consumer Response" in the food industry and "Quick Response" in the clothing industry have been used to describe similar features).
If you are seeking the keys to agility and the solutions to the above problems, read this article. (Because it could mean that your Agility is inadequate!)
Links to related training and further reading on left
Agile manufacturing is a concept designed to make your business more flexible, with many themes. It attempts to satisfy customer needs, however unreasonable these may at first seem in relation to your ability to achieve them, based on the three principles:
("Agile Competitors and Virtual Organisations: Strategies for enriching customers", Goldman Nagel & Preiss) "Agility" includes "leanness" because a high stock or spare capacity method of providing flexibility to changing customer demands or adversity is not a viable financial option. In the UK at the moment we are witnessing an unprecedented growth in warehousing to store the off-shore manufactured goods, (which have been manufactured "Just In Time"). Agile Manufacturing demands the near elimination of finished goods by increased flexibility in terms of the ability:
This overcomes an opposite problem of lean manufacturing, namely shortages. I.e. if there is little stock in the system and demand grows in volume or mix, above the design parameters of the system, shortages will occur. Integrated MRP / JIT systems (see Materials Management and Stock Control) partially solved this problem by adding back a forecast, but did not really tackle the need to forecast by specifically targeting lead-time. Leanness should not be viewed as a prerequisite to agility since this would miss the opportunity to start work on the additional agile requirements. But agility has major implications for:
This level of flexibility cannot be achieved without:
A more comprehensive list is contained in our 118 point "Agile Manufacturing Self Diagnosis". Examples of agile supply chain developments under this banner include:
Agile materials management & stock control & capacity management are a must. For this reason it is unlikely that over-sophisticated computer-based approaches will succeed over simple approaches. One of the mechanisms to achieve agility is the ability to provide forecasts throughout the supply chain of forthcoming demand without the buffering encountered in current supply chains. This is a significant challenge to the transparency of demand through the supply chain, without the intervention of inventory planners. For example the whole ethic of production planning is to create a stable plan for manufacturing to produce efficiently. Agility requires, not constant changes of plan to satisfy changing customer requirements, but very short lead-times. There is a switch of emphasis here from factory stability, to the customer need (not to be confused with the sales managers wishes). This has a major impact also on production planning and control whereby a product is earmarked for a particular customer fairly early on in the process so that customisation may proceed from that point. This is opposed to the techniques of aggregation connected with MRP systems and is more akin to a make-to-order environment albeit that one product may be very similar to the preceding one. An obvious prerequisite of course is that lead-times are short. In conclusion:
To join our research project on this subject and receive a free copy of our 118 point "Agile Manufacturing Self Diagnosis" Contact Us. (This service is only available to UK manufacturing businesses.) ________________________________________________________________ |
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| Home Page | Public Training Course Schedules | Over 150 Best Practice Articles | Expert Systems / Tools | This Month's Features / News | About Us | Your Question / Contact Us |
Think Differently!
Whilst great care has been taken to provide relevant, accurate, practical, advice based on our considerable process design and development experience, this will almost certainly require interpretation into the context of your unique business. Please be careful in doing so and if in doubt seek expert advice. We would welcome your feedback!
© SM Thacker & Associates 2010
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