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Principles of World Class Manufacturing

Subject: PRINCIPLES OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

Credits: 4

SYLLABUS

Information Age and Global Competitiveness

The Emergence of Information Age; Competition and Business Challenge; Operating Environment;
Globalization and International Business; Global Competitiveness and Manufacturing Excellence; World Class
Manufacturing and Information Age Competition; Manufacturing Challenges, Problems in Manufacturing
Industry.
Cutting Edge Technology
Value Added Engineer in - Halls Framework; Schonbergers Framework of WCM; Gunns Model; Maskells
Model.
Philosophy of World Class Manufacturing
Evolution of WCM; Ohnos View on WCM; Principles and Practices; Quality in WCM; Demings & Shingos
Approach to Quality Management; Culmination of WCM.
System and Tools for World Class Manufacturing
The Integration Imperative; Overview of Systems and Tools; Information Management Tools - Product and
Process Design Tools, Bar Code Systems, Kanban: A Lean Production Tool, Statistical Quality Control (SQC),
Material Processing and Handling Tools; Assessment of Manufacturing Systems and Tools.
Labor and HRD Practices in WCM
Human Resource Dimensions in WCM; Morale and Teamwork; High Employee Involvement; Cross Functional
Teams; Work Study Methods; Human Integration Management.
Competitive Indian Manufacturing
Manufacturing Performance and Competitiveness - Indian Firms: Manufacturing Objectives and Strategy;
Usage of Management Tools and Technologies; Manufacturing Management Practices; IT Infrastructure and
Practices; Strategic Intent Framework; Breadth and Integration of IT Infrastructure.
Globalization and World Class Manufacturing
Generic Manufacturing Strategies for Information Age; Planning Methodology and Issues in Strategic Planning
of WCM; Performance Measurement - PO-P System, TOPP System and Ambite System.
The Future WCM
Manufacturing Strategy: Futile Search for an Elusive Link, Manufacturing Strategic Intent Classification,
Translating Intent into Action.
Case Studies
Accelerated Fermentation Process Using World Class Enzymes; Birla Cellulosic Kharach.
Suggested Reading:
1. World Class Manufacturing- A Strategic Perspective by BS Sahay, KBS Saxena &
Ashish Kumar, Publisher: Rajiv Beri for Macmillan India Ltd.
2. Making Common Sense Common Practice Models for Manufacturing Excellence by

Ron Moore, Publisher: Butter Worth Heinemann

3. The Toyota Way by Jeffrey K.Liker, Publisher: Tata McGraw Hill
4. Managing Technology & Innovation for Competitive Advantage by V. K. Narayanan,
Publisher: Prentice Hall
5. World Class Manufacturing - The Lesson of Simplicity by Richard J Schonberger,
Publisher: Free Press - A Division of Simon and Schuster

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: INFORMATION AGE AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
1.1

The Emergence of the Information Age

1.2

Competing in the Information Age

1.3

Business Challenges of the Information Age

1.4

Operating Environment of Information Age Business

1.5

Global and International Business

1.6

Indias Global Competitiveness and Manufacturing Excellence

1.7

World Class Manufacturing and Information Age Competition

1.8

Manufacturing Challenges of the Information Age- Time Based Competition

1.9

Problem in the Manufacturing Industry- Problem of Coordination

1.10 Conclusion
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1.1 THE EMERGENCE OF THE INFORMATION AGE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------American futurist Alvin Toffler has described three periods of economic evolution: the
agricultural age, which lasted from 8000 BC to the mid eighteenth century; the industrial age,
which lasted until the late twentieth century; and finally, the information age that began in the
1960s and will last for many decades to come (Toffler 1980). These dates are of course
approximate and overlapping. The agricultural age was driven by physical labour and the key
sources of wealth were land and natural sources. The critical factor of economic success was
land: those who could dominate and possess land were guaranteed controlling role in creating
wealth.
The industrial age was driven by machines and blue-collar workers. During this period, a
dramatic shift took place: from land to capital as the primary factor in generating wealth. The
addition of more capital to the process of creating material wealth led to considerable increases
in the effectiveness and efficiency of technological and commercial activity. Consequently, in
this age, wealth passed from those who controlled the land to those who controlled access to
capital. The rich were no longer the landowners; they were the owners of capital. The ability to
finance industrial endeavors became the scarcest commodity of production.
The information age (treated here as synonymous with 'information economy') is driven by
information technology and knowledge workers, in concert with change in the nature of work

and workers. It is also characterized by the emergence of information or post-industrial society

(Bell 1973), which is dominated by knowledge workers-those working with information rather
than producing goods. After World War II, capital started loosing its scarcity because of
enormous accumulation. Technology also began to change-telecommunications, television,
computers, commercial air travel, and so on-making capital far more fungible and resilient,
easier to move around and, therefore, less scarce. With capital easily available, the critical
production factor shifted to people. But it did not shift to simple labour. Instead, knowledge
displaced capital as the scarce production factor and information became a strategic resource.
Those who had knowledge and knew how to apply it would henceforth be the wealthiest
members of the society. Information thus became the source for knowledge as well as the
medium to apply knowledge (Toffler 1990).
Business in the industrial and information age had different characteristics in various areas as
shown in Table 1.1
Area

Industrial Age Business

Information Age Business

Economic

Assembly line production

Stable markets and suppliers
Domestic competition
Inside out (Bottom-up)
Complex business processes
Intra-organizational
communication
Domestic reach\ ambition
Mechanical technology
Proprietary standards
Predictable innovation
Authoritarian, hierarchical
Business task focus
Individual responsibility

Customization of products
Fluid markets and suppliers
International competition
Outside in (Top-down)
Reusable, simple processes
Inter-organizational
communication
Global reach and ambitions
Electronic technology
Open, inter-operable standards
Rapid unpredictable innovation
Horizontal, team consensus
Business process focus
Team responsibility

Organizational

Technical
Socio-cultural

Table 1.1: Emerging Business Trends in the information Age

In the industrial age, wealth was created by manufacturing and the process of making things was
changed by technology. Industrial organizations grew around manufacturing operations and had
owners, managers and workers. Information was needed on what to make, how much to make,
how to make it and the financial status of the company. Information technology used was 'word
of mouth' and 'pen-on-paper'. The industrial organization evolved through most of the twentieth
century, building on the process work of Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford, and the
organizational work of Alfred Sloan. The industrial age organization reached its pinnacle from
the 1960s through the early 1980s. Then new information technology emerged-computer-enabled
organizations that could store and process vast amounts of data. With computers, companies
were able to speed up the execution of their processes. Information became an additional source
of power. However, the processes and their attendant procedures did not change significantly till
the late 1980s, when the environment started undergoing massive change-changing industry

structures, new strategic alliances, new technologies and modes altered the way the business was
done. As a result, companies felt the pressures of heightened competition and the business
impact of changing technologies. At the same time, the nature of both work and the workforce
also started changing. This was the dawn of the information age.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.2 COMPETING IN THE INFORMATION AGE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Organizations are at present in the midst of a revolutionary transformation: that of competition
shifting from the industrial age to the information age. During the industrial age, the success of a
company was measured by how well it could capture the benefits from economies of scale and
scope. Technology was important, but ultimately success accrued to companies that could embed
the new technology into physical assets that ensured efficient mass production of standard
products. The emergence of the information era in the last decades of the twentieth century made
many of the fundamental assumptions of industrial age competition obsolete. Consequently,
companies could no longer gain sustainable competitive advantage by merely deploying new
technology into physical assets rapidly. The information age environment requires new
capabilities in organizations for competitive success. The ability of a company to mobilize and
exploit its intangible assets has become far more decisive than investing and managing physical
and tangible assets. Intangible assets enable an organization to develop customer relationships
and loyalty, introduce innovative products and services, produce customized high-quality
products and services at low-cost and with short lead times, mobilize employee skills and
motivation for continuous process improvements, and deploy information technology effectively.
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1.3 BUSINESS CHALLENGES OF THE INFORMATION AGE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Information age competition has initiated some unique challenges that businesses have to cope
up with (Luftman 1996). These are described below.
Managing Uncertainty: Uncertainty in the business environment has become a way of life.
Consequently, companies are finding it even more difficult to predict changes. Customers are
becoming competitors, competitors are becoming partners and unconventional competition is
emerging. Businesses, however, must go on despite dramatically new environments that are at
present not well understood.
Understanding Customers: It is increasingly becoming important to understand customers'
needs and wants, and to translate these into a unique value-added business mission. Companies
capturing and applying information at each point of customer contact will, therefore, be better off
than those that do not. Thus, companies have to be able to apply and integrate information
technology into the entire product process (including research, design, manufacturing,
distribution, marketing, and after sales service).
Understanding Globalization of Business: Globalization is defined as a process that cuts across
national boundaries, integrating and connecting communities in new space-time combinations
(Hall et al. 1992). As information technology (IT) breaks down the barriers of time and location,
distinctions are also breaking down between large and small companies. Small, agile Finns are
now effectively competing with industry giants because IT can make a consortium of small firms
look, feel and get big, reaching out for customers once beyond their grasp. This has given rise to
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intense competition, blurring the boundaries between domestic and global markets.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.4 OPERATING ENVIRONMENT OF INFORMATION AGE BUSINESS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In order to compete in the information age, contemporary organizations are being structured on
the basis of a new set of operating assumptions, as given below (Kaplan and Norton 1996).
Business Process Orientation: Industrial age organizations gained competitive advantage
through specialization in functional skills in areas like manufacturing, purchasing, distribution,
marketing, etc. This specialization provided several benefits but over time, it led to enormous
inefficiencies, hand-offs between departments and slow response processes. Information age
organizations against this operate with integrated business processes that cut across traditional
business functions (Hammer and Champy 1993). They combine the specialization benefits from
functional expertise with the speed, efficiency and quality of integrated business processes.
Links to Customers and Suppliers: Industrial age organizations worked with customers and
suppliers through an arm's-length transaction. Information technology enables today's
organizations to integrate supply, production and delivery processes so that operations are
triggered by customer orders and not by production plans alone. An integrated system, from
customer orders upstream to raw material suppliers, enables all business units of the organization
along the value chain to realize enormous improvements in cost, quality and response time.
Customer Segmentation: Industrial age organizations prospered by offering low-cost but
standardized products and services. However, information age customers want more
individualized solutions to their wants and needs. Therefore, information age organizations must
learn to offer customized products and services to their diverse customer segments, without
paying the usual cost penalty for high-variety low-volume operations.
Global Scale: Information age organizations are able to compete against the best in the world as
domestic borders are no longer a barrier to competition. They must combine the efficiencies and
competitive honing of global operations with marketing sensitivity to local customers.
Managing Innovation: In the information age, product life cycles continue to shrink.
Competitive advantage in one generation of a product's life is no guarantee of product leadership
in the next technological platform (Bower and Christensen 1995). Consequently, companies in
industries with rapid technological innovation (such as IT industry) must be capable of
anticipating customers' future needs, designing radically new products and services, and rapidly
deploying new product technologies into efficient operating processes.
Knowledge Workers: Industrial age organizations created sharp distinctions between two
groups of their workers. First, the white-collar managers and engineers, who used their analytical
skills to design products and processes, select and manage customers, and supervise day-to-day
operations. The second group, the blue-collar workers, consisted of people who actually
produced the products and delivered the services. This direct workforce was a principal factor of
production for industrial age organizations, but it used only their physical and not mental
capabilities. In the information age organizations, the percentage of blue-collar workers has
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reduced considerably with a corresponding increase in the number of white-collar workers due to
high competitive demands. Even the contemporary blue-collar workers are involved more in
giving suggestions on how to improve quality, reduce costs and decrease cycle times. Thus all
employees are required to contribute value by what they know and by the information they can
provide. They are thus becoming knowledge-workers. Consequently, investing in, managing and
exploiting the knowledge of every employee has become critical to the success of information
age organizations.
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1.5 GLOBALIZATION AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Since World War II, a number of factors have changed the manner of competition in the global
business community. The particular catalyst for globalization may vary among different
industries, but among the various causative factors are increased similarities in available
infrastructure, distribution channels and marketing approaches among countries, as well as a
global capital market that allows large flows of funds between countries (Porter 1986).
Additional causes include falling political and tariff barriers, a growing number of regional
economic pacts that facilitate trade relations and the increasing impact of the technological
revolution in restructuring and integrating industries. Manufacturing issues associated with
flexibility, labour cost differentials and other factors also play an important role in these market
trends. Widespread globalization is also evident in a number of industries, such as software,
telecommunications and services. Consequently, economic activity today is becoming not merely
internationalized but, more significantly, it is becoming increasingly globalize.
'Internationalization' refers simply to the increasing geographical spread of economic activities
across national boundaries, which as such is not a new phenomenon. Globalization of economic
activity is qualitatively different. It is a more advanced and complex form of internationa1isation
that implies a degree of functional integration between internationally dispersed economic
activities. Though globa1isation is a more recent phenomenon, it has already emerged as the
norm in a growing range of economic activity. Almost every sector of business is influenced by
global forces due to globa1isation (Porter 1986). Globalization is characterized by:

Tightly linked global financial market;

Global sourcing of inputs, marketing and distribution of production, and manufacturing
of products and fina1 products;
Increased pressure for improved product quality and reduced product price; and
Evolution of business toward more comprehensive and continuous global coordination
and integration.
To compete successfully in this dynamically changing environment, firms need to be able
to address effectively several key strategic issues:

Cost-Quality Improvement through Coordinated Manufacturing: Global competitive

pressures push strongly to reducing product delivered cost and at the same time to improve
significantly the quality of the product and all aspects of customer service. A common strategy
used by firms .for achieving this goal is to significantly tighten all aspects of the manufacturing
process, which includes coordination strategy, such as 'just-in time' (HI) and overall qualityimprovement programmes (Imai 1986; Suzaki 1987).

Cost-Quality Improvement through Concurrent Engineering: Another key element is better

design of the product for manufacturability. To do this, integrated design teams are formed,
pulling together product design, engineering and manufacturing. The objective is to design a
product for manufacturability as well as for other objectives. In some cases, packing and
distribution, marketing and R&D functions are also brought into the concurrent engineering
process (Dean and Sussman 1989).
The Order Cycle: In many industry sectors, such as automobiles, the product is built to customer order and customer specific. The 'order cycle' begins when the customer places an order
and ends with the delivery of the completed product. In these sectors, therefore, a very key
competitive issue is to significantly shorten the time the cycle takes, to be able to deliver the
product to the customer as soon as possible after the order is placed (Stalk and Hout 1990).
After-Sales Customer Support: In many cases, customer support after the sale is a critical
issue. Customers are demanding a high level of service for maintenance, including spare parts
availability and technical skills in service staff. Add-on products and services, such as training,
documentation and product upgrades, are also required. A high level of customer support
capability is required, but it can also be profitable.
The Design Cycle: In many industries, product life is becoming shorter and shorter. Intense
competition results in even shorter product lives. The time it takes to conceive of a new product,
design it, put it into manufacturing, and deliver it to the market with a full support network in
place-the design cycle-is becoming shorter and shorter. A shorter design cycle also means a
newer technology put on the market. Thus, a company that takes six years to design a new car
model today must be using 1993 technology, while a company with a three-year design cycle
may be competing with 1996 technology.
Globally Coordinated Flexible Manufacturing: Global sourcing of component and subassemblies, global distribution into multiple markets and an efficient use of a network of global
manufacturing and assembly parts is leading to globally coordinated manufacturing. In this new
style of 'flexible manufacturing', the objective is to coordinate production planning and
scheduling among multiple plants in many countries and across product lines, to respond to
changing market and production conditions.
Globally Coordinated R&D: Global coordination of research and development" is driven by
the need for product development for global markets and by the recognition that unique research
competency exists in many different countries and cultures. When a company strives to tap these
competencies, it also wants to take a cost effective approach so that undesired duplication and
overlap is minimized. Managing R&D in a global situation is especially critical. For example, in
the pharmaceutical industry, clinical trials and regulatory approval applications must be
undertaken in many countries relatively simultaneously. Consequent to the above characteristics
of globalization-global markets and competition the uncertainty and complexity of the
environments in which firms must conduct business is increasing with time. Uncertainty and
complexity, in turn, bring about the need for an organizational capacity to handle greater and
faster communication and information processing. Succeeding in this information-intensive
world will, therefore, require a new organizational form and information technology capabilities
that operate on a global scale.
10

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1.6

INDIA'S GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS AND MANUFACTURING

EXCELLENCE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to a report) of the World Bank on global economy, developing countries over the next
10 years will grow by nearly 5 per cent a year compared to a rate of 2.7 per cent in the rich
industrial world and by 2020, India should be the fourth largest economy in the world.
Unfortunately, India currently ranks number 45 in global competitiveness among 49 countries,
according to the 1996 Global Competitiveness Report of the World Economic Forum. From 35th
position in 1994 to 39th in 1995, and now to 45th, India's decline in competitiveness is shocking.
For a country, such as India, which needs high growth levels to generate enough resources to
alleviate poverty levels, this is a dangerous prognosis. It is, therefore, critically important that
immediate steps be taken to reverse this trend. Whereas there are many factors contributing to
India's poor global competitiveness according to the above report, such as openness, government,
finance, infrastructure, technology, the main concern here is the management factor where India
has slipped from 39th rank to 43rd.
Manufacturing is the process of adding value to raw materials and resources and is at the heart of
an economy. The last decade has witnessed fierce competition in international markets led by
Japan and the newly industrialized countries. New management paradigms, emerging mainly
from the industrial management practices of Japanese companies, have changed the
manufacturing perspective, technologies and past practices. Besides, due to sustained recession
in industrialized countries, multinational companies (MNCs) have been increasingly seeking
export of manufactured goods and capital in new markets. Unfortunately, in order to compete
against these World-Class manufacturers, cheap labour (as in India) is seldom a major
competitive advantage. Experience, market share and technology innovations are greater
determinants of cost leadership than the cheap labour (Chandra and Shukla 1994). Superior
product quality, design innovations, robust delivery performance, customization and excellent
after sales service are the distinctive manufacturing characteristics needed to gain competitive
advantage. The ability to deliver these capabilities rests on the management's perspective
competition and the manufacturing practices of a company.
Historically, Indian industries developed management practices that suited the restrictive
industrial policies of the past. Until the early 1980s, the demand for most manufactured goods
exceeded supply. Consequently, Indian manufacturers preferred to exploit the limited, but
adequate, domestic market. Since the restrictive policy regime suited and reinforced their inward
orientation, industrial management practices did not emphasize either consumer orientation or
the manufacturing excellence needed in a competitive environment.
The 1980s witnessed a consumerist boom for domestic industrial products, which was
accompanied by the appearance of new industrial entrants as well as changes in the global trade
regime. Under these pressures, India in the mid-1980s undertook a gradual liberalization of the
industrial policy. The opening up of the Indian economy posed new challenges and opportunities
to Indian manufacturers. Indian industries started seeking export markets that had become
attractive following the decline in the value of the Indian rupee. But an industry's competitive
advantage cannot be built nor sustained solely by export market orientation. Development of the

11

domestic market is a vital determinant of the competitive advantage of an industry (Porter 1990).
The size, consumer sophistication and the growth of domestic demand shape the characteristics
of an industry's products that are essential to competitive success in foreign markets. India has a
large market that can provide domestic industries the scale economy that is essential for cost
leadership. But the quality of domestic' demand rather than its quantity is more important in
shaping the competitive advantage of domestic industries. Quality of domestic demand has never
been nurtured by Indian manufacturers. To successfully compete with World-Class
manufacturers in the domestic as well as the global market, Indian firms will have to offer high
quality product choices to domestic customers in order to create a sustainable base for national
manufacturing excellence.
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1.7 WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING AND INFORMATION AGE

COMPETITION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the changed globalize business environment, it is no longer feasible to compete only on the
basis of costs without paying attention to real customer preferences represented by other product
dimensions. Consequently, many new manufacturing approaches have emerged, mostly as a
reaction to the dynamically changing situation in the market place, where increased competition
and market globalization have greatly affected the distribution of market share and profit
margins. These new approaches to manufacturing are based on a pragmatic philosophy distilled
from worldwide experience in manufacturing. The major concepts are independent of technology, though they may be applied differently with technical advances. Taken independently,
none of these concepts are new; in fact, they all have antecedents dating to the early twentieth
century, if not before. In spite of this, they have a novelty of thinking in that they combine the
best and simplest practices into an elegant whole for a given approach. Manufacturing
excellence, which is the aim of these approaches, refers to an improvement in its broadest
context. This excellence can be attained by a combination of several approaches to
manufacturing such as the following (Hall 1987):

Value-added manufacturing, which means do nothing that does not add value to the
product or to the customer.
Continuous improvement manufacturing, which suggests that every aspect of
manufacturing is dedicated to making it better in ways, great and small.
Just-in-time (JIT)/Total quality control.

World-Class manufacturing was the term introduced for referring to the goal of achieving
and/or sustaining World-Class competitiveness through manufacturing excellence, attained
through best practices. In this context, different experts have expressed the goal and necessary
practices for World Class manufacturing differently, but always with the implicit goal of sustained competitiveness in the global, market place. For example, Schonberg, who introduced the
term 'World-Class manufacturing' (1986), states that it has the goal of continual improvement in
quality, cost, lead time and customer service, as also the flexibility. Gunn (1987) suggests a
number of criteria for evaluating a company's World-Class manufacturer status, such as
inventory turnover, quality defects and lead times. According to Gunn, a company needs
inventory turnovers in raw materials and work-in-process (WIP) of some 25 to 30 per year to be
a Class C World Class manufacturer, about 50 to 60 turns per year for a Class B status, and of
12

the order of 80 to 100 turns or more per year to be a Class A World Class manufacturer. As a
measure of world-class quality, a Class A manufacturer should have fewer than 200 defective
parts per million of any product it manufactures. As for lead times, the ratio of value-added lead
time to cumulative manufacturing lead time must be greater than 0.5 for a company to be a
World-Class manufacturer.
Maskell (1991) states that World-Class manufacturing is a very broad term which generally
includes focus on product quality, just-in-time (JIT) production techniques, workforce
management and flexibility in meeting customer requirements. Kinni (1996) characterizes
World-Class manufacturing by three core strategies of customer focus, quality and agility, (i.e.
the ability to quickly, efficiently and effectively respond to change) and six supporting
competencies-employee involvement, supply management, technology, product development,
environmental responsibility and employee safety, and corporate citizenship.
The information age has affected not only the industrialized countries but also the developing
countries. Consequently, the environment facing developing countries has become increasingly
more turbulent, dynamic and complex. A combination of external and internal factors, including
population growth, weak infrastructure, foreign indebtedness, and asymmetric world relations
and increasing inequalities between individuals, groups and regions, has prevented many
developing countries from achieving significant socio-economic improvements. Some
developing countries such as India have, therefore, made economic management their prime
agenda. They are going through a process of restructuring their economy to emphasize
competition, integration with global markets and increasing level of privatization. Thus, the
Indian manufacturing industry has been thrust from the protected environment of the 'licensepermit-quota' raj to an uncertain environment of global competition and global markets.
Global competitors operating in global markets almost always tend to have world-class status.
Therefore, to be globally competitive, Indian manufacturers necessarily need to achieve worldclass performance. Oddly enough, as stated earlier, developing countries such as India, China
and Brazil themselves constitute a huge market that attracts many world-class companies from
other countries to sell their products. Thus, even domestic companies in these countries, who
are not targeting global markets, are forced to compete with these world-class companies by
virtue of their entry into the domestic market. This is facilitated by the liberalization policy of
the governments of these countries, often somewhat at a pace that does not give time to
domestic companies to be really ready for world-class performance. Thus, as is clear from
Figure 1.2, Indian manufacturers need to acquire World-Class status, irrespective of the fact
that they operate only in the domestic market or are exporters. Achieving world-class
performance is a great opportunity for those who can make it, and for others a serious threat.
Though to some extent, Indian manufacturers have realized this and are trying to rise to the
challenge, their battle for survival and growth has just begun. Their success will depend on their
readiness to move from a protected domestic to world-class global manufacturing status
quickly and confidently.

13

Global

Exporters

World-Class
Manufacturers

Domestic

Multinational
Players

Markets
Local

Local

Global
Competitors

Figure 1.2: World-Class Manufacturing

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1.8 MANUFACTURING CHALLENGES OF THE INFORMATION AGETIME BASED COMPETITION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Time will be the primary competitive motive of business in the twenty first century. It does not
mean, however, that other motives, such as cost, quality and services, can be ignored. In fact,
these are prerequisites to sustain competitiveness. But the winning factor is provided by time
(Stalk 1988) and enhancement to basic products. Reducing time is not critical in itself-it is the
benefits achieved through time reduction, in the form of greater cash flow, less inventory,
quicker customer response and ultimately, greater profits, that make time-based competition
worthwhile (Handfield 95). Moreover, time-based competition does not just refer to manufacturing but to the entire product/value supply chain, which includes product development, order
processing, supplier delivery, pre-production, manufacturing, final assembly and distribution.
Thus, in the manufacturing environment, time-based competition becomes the highest priority to
gain responsiveness and flexibility (Figure 1.3) (Meyer 1990).
Responsiveness and flexibility have several important dimensions (Table 1.1). One is productmix, the need to support maximum variety in end products with minimal disruption to the
manufacturing operations. Others relate to upgrading of plant and equipment in order to start
production quickly. The driving force behind this priority setting is the need and the wish to
respond to virtually any customer request just-in-time.
Flexibility, on the contrary, is the response of a system to environmental uncertainties ('the
unknown customer'). Thus, the 1990s will need an information culture to manage uncertainties,
which will no longer be pushed

14

S
t
r
a
t
e
g
i
c

Market
Diversification
Flexibility
Productivity

Turnover

G
o
a
l
s

Growth

1
960

1970

1980

1990

2000

Year
Figure 1.3 Changing Business Goals in a Changing Environment
Table 1.1 Flexible Manufacturing for Meeting Business Objectives
Business Objectives

Flexibility

Product Innovation
Product Diversity
Customer requirement
Market share
Meeting delivery dates

Product Technology
Product Mix
Design
Volume
Routing, Sequencing

Forward by technology but will be controlled by information feedback. This leads us to the
second challenge industries are facing today: how to manage knowledge?
Managing Knowledge: In the twenty-first century, the productivity and, even more important,
the effectiveness managers and white-collar workers will become critical to long-term survival.
The effectiveness of these experts depends on their smooth integration In to the organization.
Therefore, in the era of advanced specialization, integration of dispersed knowledge will become
progressively more difficult and more costly to achieve. Knowledge will become scarce and the
most crucial and expensive economic resource. Of late, the dependence of organizations on

15

experts, mainly through the increase of informal power generated by expert knowledge, has been
analyzed in detail. Managing knowledge would, therefore, be a big challenge in the twenty first
century due to its strategic potential.
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1.9 PROBLEMS IN THE MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY- PROBLEM

OF COORDINATION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once a company has defined its manufacturing strategy, it has to initiate mechanisms for
managing product complexity as well those for managing demand uncertainty in the form of
uncertain orders, both perhaps at the same time. The challenge of managing product complexity
is to improve productivity (goal of 'mass production' strategy) whereas the challenge of market
uncertainty is to improve flexibility (goal of 'mass customization' strategy) (Meyer 1990).
Product complexity is managed by breaking down a manufacturing task into a number of
subtasks and operations. Executing these subtasks and operations in parallel improves
productivity. But if different subtasks are performed by different workers ('division of labour'),
then the productivity improvement is restricted by coordination costs, which may otherwise
exceed productivity gains. This is also true for expert knowledge, the other resource required to
execute operations. Thus, a basic problem in manufacturing is the problem of coordination,
which could be stated as:

After exploding a manufacturing task into thousands of subtasks, how difficult and
costly is it to ensure their proper sequencing, scheduling and interaction over a period
of time?
After dividing the task expertise among hundreds of 'incomplete expert' workers, how
difficult and costly is it to maintain their coordination, motivation and performance?
As we divide information into millions of tiny bits, hoe difficult and expensive is it to
achieve integration, record and update?

That answer to the sequential is that it gets progressively more difficult and more costly.
Therefore, as the complexity and cost of integration and coordination becomes too large, we tend
to focus on the question of reintegration. In this context, just-in-time (JIT) efforts aim at the
reintegration of physical labour (via flow lines) whereas computer-integrated manufacturing
(CIM) anticipates the reintegration of special expertise organized in functional departments
through integrated information process.
Need for Control: For managing task complexity, coordination is required. Likewise to manage
market uncertainty, planning and control is required. Management by hierarchical planning and
control copes with uncertainties by adaptation to environment and optimization of controller
parameters. For instance, a production schedule should be optimized to increase system
responsiveness to demand, i.e.
1. To keep due dates,
2. To reduce total flow-time, and
3. To balance factory loads.

16

This is the planning problem. Against this, the control problem deals with machine-sharing
policy, lot is splitting and job sequencing. That is, with (i) exploiting resources efficiently, and
(ii) respecting due dates in the face of uncertainty. In general, the breakdown of long- to shortterm planning decisions indicates levels in the complexity of decisions. This is managed by
defining a family of decision problems and generating solutions in a sequential top-down
manner.
Fragmented Information infrastructure: Today, the manufacturing industry is still striving for
stability of its production system as a major organizational goal. Therefore, in most manufacturing firms, management of change is not yet considered a permanent objective. Whether JIT
or CIM, whichever way task coordination is managed, a seamlessly integrated information
infrastructure is a must. However, information processing is still very fragmented even in
computerized applications (Sahay et al. 1997). Therefore, in many companies, the decisionmaking process is still based on traditional information processing information gathering with
'paper and pencil' on request and from inconsistent sources. This process is at its least very time
consuming and may yield only insufficient or even unreliable information.
Insufficient Process ability of Available Information: In addition to having a fragmented
information infrastructure, most companies are still not organized for fast decision-making
processes. Departments are still managed according to their own sub-goals rather than to real
enterprise goals. The responsibilities are still structured in one-dimension hierarchies, which mix
responsibilities for enterprise assets with those for enterprise operations.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.10 CONCLUSION
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------With the dawn of the information age, the requirements for remaining competitive in
manufacturing have become more demanding. Only recently, high quality and efficiency were
the 'necessary and sufficient' conditions for staying in business. But not anymore. Now
manufacturers must be able to rapidly develop and produce customized products to meet
customer needs. To further complicate matters, the requirements for economies of scale, based
on the traditional assumptions of mass production, are coming into direct conflict with the
requirements for economies of scope-that is, mass customization by maintaining continuous
innovation while using people and equipment to cost effectively produce smaller amounts of a
range of products. On top of it, globalization has imposed an additional constraint, which
manufacturers must achieve World-Class manufacturer status to compete effectively in both
domestic as well as global markets. This requires a paradigm shift within organizations, which
may be termed as integrated manufacturing and which aim to eliminate barriers by creating a
streamlined flow of automated, value-added activities, uninterrupted by transportation, storage,
or rework (Dean and Snell 1996; Snell and Dean 1992).
Integrated manufacturing is driven by the widespread adoption of advanced manufacturing
technology (AMT), total quality management (TQM), and just-in-time (JIT) inventory control.
These together have important strategic potential in that they blend the stages, functions and
goals of manufacturing. Rather than viewing performance as the result of trade-offs between, for
example, cost and quality, the 'integrated manufacturing' perspective posts that firms can pursue
several outcomes simultaneously (Ferdows and DeMeyer 1990).

17

Currently, most manufacturers in India are nowhere close to world c1ass status' They, therefore,
have to face the challenge of meeting world; class performance through flexibility and
responsiveness, achieved by effective planning, control and coordination and enabled by
integrated manufacturing and effective knowledge management. Unfortunately, there have been
many discussions on national infrastructure and macroeconomic policies in the national media
but very little attention has been paid in designing policies that map managerial practices to
manufacturing excellence of world-class status. While macroeconomic factors affect the
investment climate and the extent of resources available to enhance productivity, they fail to
define and control the parameters of competition, viz., cost, quality, delivery and flexibility
(Chandra and Shukla 1994). Economic reforms in India have already started opening up new
challenges and opportunities for Indian industries. Whether Indian firms will be able to capitalize
on these opportunities and elevate themselves as viable global competitors shall depend
primarily on their dynamism and ability to transform themselves into World-Class
manufacturers-the sooner, the better and perhaps safer.

18

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CUTTING EDGE TECHNOLOGY

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure

2.1 Manufacturing Excellence and Competitiveness

2.2 What is World Class Manufacturing?
2.3 Halls Framework of Value Added Engineering
2.4 Schonbergers Framework of World Class Manufacturing (WCM)
2.5 Gunns Model of World Class Manufacturing
2.6 Maskells Model of World Class manufacturing
2.7 Americas Best Plants Model of World Class Manufacturing
2.8 Malcolm Baldridge Quality Award
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1 MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE AND COMPETITIVENESS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manufacturing involves technology that has two aspects-technology of the product and
technology of the process. The technology of the product determines the qualities that customers
look for in the market place, i.e. performance, features, appearance, attractiveness, etc. However,
its price, quality and reliability are determined by the technology employed in making the
product, i.e. manufacturing processes. One has to be good at both in a competitive world. A
cosmetically brilliant product that fails the first time you put it to use will hardly have any
buyers. As also will a robust and well-built product which is hideous in appearance and not userfriendly. Product technology and process technology go hand in hand. Both product technology
and process technology can be purchased. However, how we put it to use and exploit it to our
advantage, determines our competitiveness.
Furthermore, manufacturing is not merely the conversion process that takes place on the shop
floor, but a whole lot of activities preceding and following it, till the product leaves the factory.
Thus, manufacturing is a more comprehensive activity and includes activities, such as materials
management, equipment and tooling, fabrication of parts, material handling, assembly, quality
control, maintenance of plant and machinery, planning, information systems and human
resources (Prabhala 1994). Each of these activities is important and must be done well to achieve
manufacturing excellence. But excellence in all the manufacturing activities individually is not
sufficient; overall excellence alone guarantees success. Again, one time excellence guarantees
only one-time success. For continued success in a competitive market, continuous improvement
in all areas of activity is essential. Without it, one may have the best technology and the most
modern plant and machinery, but still someone else may be turning out a better product at a
lower cost.

19

To achieve excellence in manufacturing, a manufacturing manager should keep in mind five

goals (prabhala 1994):
Throughput should go up.
Inventory should come down.
Operating expenses should come down.
Cycle time should come down.
Yield should go up.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2 WHAT IS WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manufacturing is the bedrock on which the economic wealth of nations is built. The industrial
revolution, first in the UK and later in Europe and the US, shifted manufacturing activity from
homes and cottages to factories equipped with power-driven machinery and management from
owners to professionals. The UK, which pioneered the industrial revolution, lost its competitive
edge to Europe, particularly to Germany, and to the US, by failing to upgrade its manufacturing
technology and commercialize its scientific research. American manufacturing dominated the
world in the 1940s but since then many countries, especially from the South-East Asia and the
Far East, have advanced a long way, giving America tough competition. There may be a number
of reasons for this (Schonbergers 1986; Gunn 1987):

These countries had newer plants and equipment.

American firms had short-term focus and, therefore, did not reinvest in new plant and
equipment.
American workers demanded high wage rates.
These countries use unfair trade practices in market access, sharing of technology, or in
other ways.
Young Americans did not want to have a career in manufacturing.
Americans did not want to work any more, etc.
Most American firms measured their company's progress against their own performance
in the last year rather than benchmarking it with competitors.
The top management of many of these companies did not have a manufacturing
background but came from marketing, finance, etc.

More recently, the disappearance of a whole lot of industries in the US, such as consumer
electronics, is a symptom of the malaise that results when manufacturing takes a back seat. The
loss of competitiveness of the American industry in a number of segments such as automobiles,
machine tools, cameras and semi conductors is less due to unfair trade practices adopted by
Japan and more due to a neglect of the essentials of competitive manufacturing. Thus, with the
increasing level of globalization and competition, American firms were constrained to regain
their competitiveness in the global markets. With manufacturing capability much stronger
worldwide, it was not possible for the US to match every other region in every product line.
However, production of a large stable of products competitive in the global market was
necessary to maintain an equitable trade balance with other developed nations. This 'improved
competitiveness' in its broadest context was referred to as manufacturing excellence, and was

20

deemed to be demonstrated by simultaneous improvements in manufacturing performance as

well as business performance through indicators, such as productivity (i.e. value added per
employee), cost reduction and market share in the world market (Kinni 1996). If a firm continues
to excel in manufacturing, it may dominate world markets, in which case it would be called a
World-Class manufacturer (Figure 2.1), (Maskell 1991). The goals of World-Class
manufacturing efforts include maintaining market share, improving profitability and improving
the firm's ability to compete in a global market place (Montgomery et al. 1996).
Improved
Manufacturing
Performance

Improved
Business
Performance

World
Market
Domination

+ ---------------- Manufacturing Excellence-------+

+--------------- World-Class Manufacturer ------+

Figure 2.1: 'Manufacturing Excellence and World-Class Manufacturing
Whereas the general principles of improving manufacturing performance are well known, in
order to establish the relationship between 'manufacturing performance' and 'business
performance' or 'world-market dominance', there was a need to develop a conceptual framework
to represent the relationship. A number of manufacturing researchers/consultants have published
such frameworks, and some of the more prominent and recent ones are described as follow.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.3 HALLS FRAMEWORK OF VALUE ADDED ENGINEERING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to Hall (1987), manufacturing excellence is attained by 'value-added manufacturing',
which is based on the principle that 'purge anything that does not add value to the product or
service, whether material, equipment, space, time, energy, systems, or human activity of any
sort'. Shigeo (1981) gives a summary of the seven wastes, where waste is anything that does not
add value to the product or service. These seven wastes and their methods of elimination are:
Waste Type

Elimination Method

Waste of overproduction

Reducing set-up time, synchronizing quantities

and timing between processes, etc.
Synchronizing workflow as much as possible,
balancing uneven loads, etc.
Redesigning layouts to make transport and
handling unnecessary.
Need assessment of product and process.
Reduce set-up times, and lead times by
synchronizing workflows
Study motion for economy and consistency.
Prevent defects to eliminate inspection.

Waste of waiting
Waste of transportation
Waste of processing itself
Waste of stocks
Waste of motion
Waste of making defective parts

21

The 'value-added manufacturing' framework is based on several principles:

Take a broad view of operation.

Make problems visible to everyone.
Keep it simple.
Improve operations before spending on new plant and equipment.
Flexibility.

Figure 2.2: Manufacturing Excellence through Value-added Manufacturing

The framework of 'value-added manufacturing' is described in three overlaying categories of
work {Figure 2.2), total quality, just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, and people involvement. One
cannot be successful with JIT or total quality without total people involvement. Each of these is
characterized by the following basics:
1. Total Quality Control

Begin with the customer

Measure and track quality
Take a broad view of quality
Set targets for improvement
Responsibility at the source is important
Standardization maintains good practice and prevents problems from recurring
Fail-safe operations.

22

2. JIT Manufacturing

Only the right materials, parts and products in the right place at the right time

3. Total People Involvement

Broad perspective
Problem-solving atmosphere
Employment security
Performance measurement

Value-added manufacturing is a philosophy of competitive advantage through the development

of people. In complex manufacturing, the best advantage comes from what people can do that
competitors cannot. It is not quickly established, but once firmly in place, it is not quickly
destroyed either.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.4 SCHONBERGERS
MANUFACTURING

FRAMEWORK

OF

WORLD

CLASS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to Schonbergers (1986), the goal of world-Class Manufacturing (WCM) is 'continual

and rapid improvement'. He argues that continual improvement in quality, cost, lead time,
customer service and flexibility will lead to 'World-Class' status. The WCM status can be
achieved by any of the two parallel paths: the quality path, and the JIT production path. These
are dominant WCM precepts for treating the ailment. The JIT precept is based on the JIT
principle-the smaller the lot size, the better. WCMs of cars, tractors, and motorcycles have some
lot sizes down to one unit by becoming adept at changeovers between models. The second
precept is the total quality control (TQC) principle-do it right the first time. A third set of
precepts is called total productive maintenance (TPM)-a regime of comprehensive maintenance
activity, carried out largely by the operator (the "owner") of the equipment and not by a
maintenance specialist the objective of which is to ensure zero downtime of equipment.
While the JIT concept is natural in flow industries, it can work in discrete goods manufacturing
also. A WCM precept is to produce some of every type every day and in the quantities sold that
day. Making more than that can be sold is costly and wasteful, and the cost and waste is magnified manifold as the resulting lumpiness in the demand pattern ripples back through all prior
stages of manufacture, including on bid supplier. In Schonberger's opinion, if a WCM effort fails
to make it easier for marketing to sell the product, then something is wrong. He advocates for
cellular manufacturing, deviation reduction and variability reduction. While cellular
manufacturing will help achieve improvement in quality, cost, delays, flexibility, worker skills,
lead time, inventory performance, scrap, equipment 'up-time' and a host of other factors,
deviation reduction should take care of zero defect and reductions in lead time.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.5 GUNNS MODEL OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to Gunn (1987), World-Class manufacturing rests on three pillars: computerintegrated manufacturing (CIM), total quality control (TQC) and just-in-time (JIT) production

23

methods. These are the three fundamental approaches in modem manufacturing which may
enable a manufacturer to gain competitive advantage for reaching World-Class status. He
proposes Arthur Young's Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage framework to illustrate this
point (Figure 2.3). This framework starts with a business units strategic vision at the top, which
embodies the overall business objectives of the unit. This vision is based upon two different
frames of reference-the first is that of the global markets in which the manufacturer competes,
and the other is that of its global competitors.

Suppliers

Global
Competitors

Product & Process Design

Quality

Planning &

Human
Resources
Strategic Vision
-----

Technology

World-Class
Manufacturing

Planning

Control
Production

Distribution
Service

Management
Resource

Global Markets

Integrated Manufacturing
I
T
C
J
Q
I
I
C M
T

Customers

Figure 2.3: Gunn's Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage Framework

The next level, in the framework is integrated manufacturing. This has one dimension of the
entire range of activities, consisting of product and process design, to manufacturing planning
and control, to the production, process itself, to distribution, and to after-sales service and
support; and the other dimension consisting of customers and suppliers.
The framework also shows that the main interface from integrated manufacturing has been
through the distribution function. However, according to Gunn, all the five functions within
manufacturing should be engaged in an ongoing dialogue with their customers.
The fact that CIM, TQC, and IIT are shown together and equally under integrated manufacturing
in the framework, has some important implications. First, by showing CIM and JIT together, the

24

indication is that there is nothing mutually exclusive about the two, nor is there anything mutually exclusive between JIT concepts and manufacturing resource planning (MRP), a part of CIM.
Moreover, by showing all three together, it is implied that all three must be addressed at once in
any overall programmes to gain competitive advantage in manufacturing.
The Manufacturing for Competitive Advantage framework provides a logically rigorous,
complete and yet easy-to-understand view of a global manufacturer's environment. It can be used
as a means for discussion in order to appraise whether the company is addressing all aspects of
what it takes to become a world Class manufacturer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.6 MASKELLS MODEL OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------According to Maskell, World-Class manufacturing generally includes the, following:

A new approach to product quality

Just-in-time (JIT) production techniques
Change in the way the workforce is managed; and
A flexible approach to customer requirements

In terms of-quality, the World-Class manufacturing approach emphasises on the resolution of

the problems that cause poor quality, rather than mere detection of those problems. The purpose
is to systematically resolve the root causes of quality problems so that the company can
ideally achieve zero defects or 100 per cent quality. A second aspect of the new approach is that
quality control responsibility is placed on floor with the production operators. The operators are
responsible for doing their own quality control and a 'pride of ownership' attitude is fostered.
The purpose of JIT manufacturing is to change the production so that inventory not
immediately required for production is eliminated. This goal is achieved by:

Change of the shop-floor layout to reduce the movement of materials

Reduction in production set-up times so that products can be made in very small batches
Synchronizing the manufacturing process so that sub-assemblies and components are
available just when they are needed and not" before or after)
Creating mutually beneficial relationships with suppliers, using techniques such as
single sourcing, certification and openness.

People management is the most difficult problem to solve when introducing World-class
manufacturing, as it requires fundamental changes in management style and philosophy. Some
of the new approaches to the management of people are:

Transfer of Responsibility: A World-Class manufacturer should give operators greater

control of their daily work. They will have prime responsibility for product quality,
scheduling preventive maintenance and for attaining production targets.

Education and Cross-Training: World-Class manufacture spends lot of time and money
to educate their employees in areas such as JIT manufacturing, quality control and
25

customer service as well as train them to do a wide range of tasks within the production
plant. This cross training of people allows greater flexibility because operators can be
moved between tasks.

Problem-Solving and Quality Circles: The purpose of quality circles is to have every
employee involved in solving production (and other) problems. These programmes have
been very successful in many companies because they create an environment of team
involvement and common cause, which enables people, who previously had very little
opportunity to contribute, to become innovative and resourceful problem-solvers.

As for flexibility, there are two aspects of flexibility that are important:

Production Flexibility: It is achieved when the company can offer short lead times,
when the product mix within the plant can be changed significantly from day to day, and
when people within the plant are cross-trained to manufacture a wider range of products.
A company that can offer this level of flexibility to its customers (without a price
penalty), has a significant competitive advantage.

Design Flexibility: It is related to the company's ability to introduce new products and
modifications to current products. A company must be able to understand the current and
future needs of its customers, to develop innovative products and to get those products to
the market place quickly.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.7 AMERICA'S BEST

MANUFACTURING

PLANTS

MODEL

OF

WORLD-CLASS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Industry Week conducts a survey of American plants to identify which of them are World-Class
(Kinni 1996). Whereas the questionnaire for this survey was a very detailed one, the
characteristics of World-Class manufacturing are identified by the three core strategies: customer
focus, quality and agility (i.e. the ability to quickly, efficiently and effectively respond to change).
These form the foundation for 'Best Plants' performance, and six supporting competencies-employee involvement, supply management, technology; product development, environmental
responsibility and safety, and corporate citizenship. The supporting competencies help the plants
achieve the goals defined in the three core strategies.
The three core strategies are at the same time both philosophical and tangible goals. Customer
focus has always been a primary requirement of business. Customers should occupy the centre of
a manufacturing operation. In the best plants, the customer is the king. Quality is the second core
strategy. In America's best plants, quality is viewed as defect free, waste free workmanship that
derives from product and process quality. Lastly, agility has been defined as lean manufacturing
and just-in-time supply practices, flexible production structures, fast, clean slate process redesign
as advocated in re-engineering and mass customisation production strategies.
The six supporting competencies of best plants assist in the achievement of the three core
strategies. The supporting competencies recognise that a manufacturing plant is more than
simply a production line that converts raw materials into finished goods. It is a living system that
26

has impact far beyond its walls. Best plants are also the people who work in them and the
vendors who supply to them. They are technologies that support the operation and the new
products they create. They have an effect on the environment and communities in which they
operate.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.8 MALCOLM BALDRIDGE NATIONAL QUALITY AWARD

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Good management has generally been recognized as necessary for achieving a World-Class
competitive position in the manufacturing sector. With the rise of Japanese companies and, more
recently, that of firms from other Pacific Rim countries, increasing attention has been given to
excellence at the operational level. Many awards created over the last 40 years promote total
quality management as the means of achieving manufacturing excellence, and thus reaching
World-Class status. The first was the Deming Prize in Japan, created in 1951. The Malcolm
Baldridge National Quality Award, established in 1987, is the best known and most
comprehensive award in the US.
The Baldridge Award is used by many as a benchmark. The Award criteria are built upon the
following core values and concepts:

Customer-driven quality
Leadership
Continuous improvement
Full participation
Fast response
Design quality and prevention
Management by fact
Partnership development
Public responsibility

These core values and concepts are embodied in seven categories in attaining global quality
standards:
Leadership
Information and analysis
Strategic quality planning
Human resource development and management
Management of process quality
Quality and operational results
Customer focus and satisfaction
The Baldridge Award offers a demanding competition, with every company subject to the same
stringent tests. The Award has created a common vocabulary and philosophy bridging companies
and industries. Managers now view learning across the boundary lines of .business as both
possible and desirable.

27

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PHYLOSOPHY OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
3.1 The Evolution of World Class Manufacturing
3.2 The First Principles of World class manufacturing
3.3 The Practices of World Class Manufacturing
3.4 World Class Practices in the Factory
3.5 Quality in World-Class Manufacturing
3.6 Deming's Approach to Quality Management
3.7 Shingos Approach to Quality Management
3.8 Assessing the Two Basic Approaches to Quality
3.9 Conclusion: The Culmination of World Class Manufacturing
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1 THE EVOLUTION OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A number of names have been used for the body of knowledge that we have referred to in this
book as World-Class manufacturing. The most popular of these is just-in-time (JIT)
manufacturing. In their authoritative work, Womack et al. (1990) coined the phrase 'lean
production' to describe this knowledge. Others have used evocative terms like stockless
production, zero inventories and World-Class manufacturing. World-Class manufacturing was
pioneered at the Toyota Motor Company (Toyota) in Japan, where it was simply called the
Toyota Production System. The term 'agile manufacturing' was coined and made popular at the
Iacocca Institute of Lehigh University in the US, with the publication of a report titled 21st
Century Manufacturing Enterprise Strategy. The report presented a scenario in which an
automobile company delivers a car designed by a customer in the sales showroom in three days.
For the agile manufacturer, the 'entire business strategy and competitive edge centres on
flexibility and fast response' (Maskell 1991).
Indian managers typically associate the JIT philosophy embodied in World-Class manufacturing
with JIT deliveries of supplies from vendors. This is a case of missing the wood for the trees.
Based on this limited understanding, some managers aver that world class manufacturing is not
practical in India. As we will soon show, nothing could be further from the truth..
World-Class manufacturing was developed largely by Taiichi Ohno, who rose from a foreman
to become a vice-president at Toyota, and Shigeo Shingo, a famous Japanese industrial
engineering consultant. Ohno's definition of World-Class manufacturing (Japan Management
28

Association, 1986) is simple: 'All we are doing is looking at the time line from the moment the
customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time
line by removing the non-value-added wastes.
This simple but profound explanation brings out the goal of World Class manufacturing: to
bring manufacturing closer to the market. Some authors recommend negative working capital
as the ultimate goal of manufacturing. This is not what Ohno had in mind. Hypothetically, a
state of negative working capital requirement can be reached by aggressively man aging the
accounts receivable and accounts payable. The World-Class manufacturing philosophy is that
the order fulfillment process-as well as the product development process-must be continuously
shortened through the elimination of waste.

Figure 3.1: Ohnos View of the essence of World Class Manufacturing

Shingo (1989) has explained how this enables a World-Class response to the market. If a product
is ordered for delivery within 10 days but takes 20 days to produce, it obviously cannot be
produced to order. If this situation is accepted, the logical conclusion is that excess semiprocessed stock must be held to meet demand. Unfortunately, things are made worse by the fact
that sales forecasts are inherently inaccurate. Some buffer stock must be held to provide for this.
This phenomenon has been called 'speculative production' by Shingo.
World-Class manufacturing focuses on reducing the order fulfillment process through methods
which will be explained in this and the subsequent units. Shingo states that 'this method of
reducing production delays is the foundation of the Toyota Production System. When coupled
with the practice of SMED, deliveries can be made even on very short notice without any
inventory.' (SMED is an acronym for Single Minute Exchange of Die. This concept will be
explained shortly.)Thus, shortening the order fulfillment process has a number of desirable
effects:

The manufacturer has the ability to deliver products on time without carrying large
stocks.

29

Production is largely aligned to demand. Forecasts are required for relatively shorter time
horizons and are more accurate.
Feedback from the market is faster because the time spent by finished Goods from the
factory to the consumer is reduced.

The pioneers of World-Class manufacturing were very clear about what constitutes waste in
manufacturing. As explained earlier, Shingo has identified seven kinds of waste. The basic idea
is that any operation which does not add value is wasteful. Interestingly, over-production is
considered to be the deadliest waste because it hides the other six wastes.
Monden (1983) provides a different, but equally useful, perspective on the basic idea of WorldClass manufacturing:
The basic idea in such a production system is to produce the kind of units needed, at the time
needed and in the quantities needed. With the realisation of this concept, unnecessary
intermediate and finished product inventories are eliminated. However, although cost-reduction
is the system's most important goal, it must achieve three other sub-goals on order to achieve its
primary objective. They include:
1. Quantity control which enables the system to adapt to daily and monthly fluctuations in
demand in terms of quantities and variety;
2. Quality Assurance which assures that each process will supply only good units to
subsequent processes; and
3. Respect-for-humanity, which must be cultivated while the system utilities the human
resource to attain its cost objectives.
In sum, the mission of World-Class manufacturing is to bring manufacturing closer to the market
by eliminating waste. This mission is translated into reality through the objectives of cost
reduction, quantity control, quality assurance and respect for humanity. The end result is that
there is a streamlined pattern of work flow, which ensures that the output from the supply chain
closely matches the demands placed on it by the market place. Organisational barriers (e.g. those
between buyers and suppliers) and functional ones (e.g. those between production and other
departments, like design, procurement and distribution, as well as those between production
shops themselves) are disbanded to facilitate the establishment of flow in manufacturing.
The perception that World-Class manufacturing is not practical or desirable in India is based on a
fallacy about its purpose and nature. The goals of World-Class manufacturing are, if anything,
more relevant for the capital-starved Indian industry today than they are in Japan and in the
West.
The origins of World-Class manufacturing can be traced back to 1926, when Toyoda Sakichi of
the Toyoda Spinning and Weaving Company invented an auto-activated loom, fulfilling a 25year dream (Ohno 1992).This loom stopped automatically if any one of the threads broke. This
invention had a far-reaching result: an operator was not needed to stand by just to see that things
were going all right. The machine had a built-in capability to distinguish between normal and
abnormal conditions. Only in case of an abnormality would it require human intervention. Thus,

30

one operator could look after several looms.

Ohno used the term 'autonomation'-meaning automation with a human touch-to distinguish this
kind of automation, from conventional automation, which simply reduces the effort of the
operator. He described autonomation as one of the two pillars of the Toyota Production System,
the other one being just-in-time. The patent for this 100m was sold to Platt Brothers of England
for 1 million yen in 1930. This money was spent on automobile research.
Ohno (1992) gives the credit for the term just-in-time to Toyoda Sakichi successor, Toyoda
Kiichiro: 'The words "just-in-time" pronounced by Toyoda Kiichiro were a revelation to some
Toyota people, one of whom became quite attached to the idea. And I have been attached ever
since. In 1933, Toyoda Kiichiro announced the goal to develop domestically produced cars for
the general public: 'we shall learn production techniques from the American method of mass
production. But we will not copy it as it is. We shall use our own research and creativity to
develop a production method that suits our country's situation.'
The Toyota Motor Company was founded in 1937, but was restricted to making trucks by the
government during the World War II (Womack et al. 1990). At the end of 1949, Toyota saw
layoffs and a bitter strike that was resolved only when Toyoda Kiichiro resigned, accepting
blame for management failures. At that time Toyota had produced a total of 2,685 vehicles. In
contrast, Ford's Rouge plant produced 7,000 vehicles per day. It was the largest and most
efficient plant in the world at that time. Toyoda Eiji, who took over at Toyota in 1949, studied
this plant for three months in 1950. At the end of his study, he wrote back that in his view 'there
were some possibilities to improve the system'.
Some of the key features of the Japanese economy that time (ironically, some of these features
quite accurately describe the Indian scenario today) were:

The domestic market was tiny in size, but demanded a wide variety of vehicles
The new labour laws introduced under the Macarthur regime had greatly strengthened the
position of workers
There was no source of cheap immigrant labour
Japan was starved for capital. Industry could not afford to buy large, spanking new
machines used in Western industry.

Ohno (1988) recalls that when the Allied army occupied Japan, someone from the General
Headquarters pronounced that US productivity was eight times higher than that of Japan. Taking
this 8-to-l figure as an average, Ohno concluded that the figure for a key American industry like
autos would in all probability be l0-to-1. Thus, the goal that Toyota management set for them
selves was a ten-fold increase in productivity.
This was the background that leads to the development of World-Class manufacturing. The
techniques were perfected over two decades, but came into prominence only after of 1973, when
other companies were reeling from the oil shock but Toyota continued to perform well. The early
eighties saw a spate of publications on these techniques.

31

In the meantime, Western industry had been largely preoccupied with computer-based
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II) systems and flexible automation technologies, such
as robotics. The initial response of many practitioners and consultants was to advocate either JlT
or MRP II. Today, the consensus is that manufacturing applications of information technology
(IT), including Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)-the present day avatar of MRP II-should be
used if required to further the principles of World-Class manufacturing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.2 THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Process Orientation: Though process orientation is often ascribed to proponents of business
process re-engineering (BPR), the true pioneer of process orientation, was probably Shigeo
Shingo. In 1946, Shingo realized that all production activity-whether in the factory or the officewas composed of a 'network of processes and operations'. Perplexed managers will. Probably
find Shingo's distinction between process and operation very useful (Shingo 1989). He noted:

A process is the course by which material is transformed into a product. This consists of
four phenomena: processing, inspection, transport and storage.
An operation is an action performed on the material by machines and workers.

Shingo's definitions are made from a shop floor perspective, but they can very easily be
generalized: a process is the course by which value is added to an entity that a customer is
waiting for; an operation is an action performed on this entity by a worker or a piece of
equipment.
A customer in a bank waits for her withdrawal slip to be processed so that she can collect cash at
the counter. The process here is the completion of the procedures required to enable the customer
to collect. The time taken for this is what matters to the customer. If the clerk, who first handles
the withdrawal slip, finishes his work in one minute instead of two, but a peon routinely delays
the movement of the slip by 10 minutes, the faster operation of the clerk does not matter much to
the customer.
As Shingo put it, 'To make fundamental improvement in the production process, we must
distinguish product flow (process) from work flow (operation) and analyse them separately.' As
we shall see, the people who developed World-Class manufacturing did a very good job of this.
Avoid False Tradeoffs: The genius of the early achievers of World-Class manufacturing lay in
their ability to eschew the conventional 'optimizing' approach to problem solving, and substitute
it with an approach in which 'reasonable' assumptions were questioned to reconcile seemingly
conflicting objectives. Shingo was a major force behind this approach, and his explanation is
worth repeating here (Shingo 1989):
In dialectics, you start off with an idea called a thesis. Opposed to this is an antithesis. In
ordinary thinking, the antagonism between a thesis and an antithesis is usually resolved through
a compromise. However, this problem of contradiction and opposition can be viewed from a
different perspective. Through sublation, a higher-level synthesis is reached. The opposition
vanishes and both sides are satisfied. This method of reasoning is called the dialectic process.

32

The most famous example of application of the dialectic process is the SMED system developed
by Shingo. For decades, students of various disciplines were taught about the theory of the
Economic Order Quantity (EOQ). The reasoning behind this theory is shown in Figure 3.2. A
smaller production lot size is desirable because it implies a lower level of investment tied up in
inventory. However, small lot sizes imply a larger number of set-ups. Now set-ups in some
cases-for example, in press shops would take a lot of time, meaning that costs of lost production
would be incurred. Therefore the idea was to choose a lot size that would minimize the total
inventory carrying cost and setup cost.
While working on an assignment in 1950, Shingo realized that there were really two kinds of
set up operations:

Internal set-up-operations (such as mounting or removing dies on a press) that could be

performed only after the machine had been stopped.
External set-up-operations (such as transporting press dies to and from storage) that could
be completed without stopping the machine.

Figure 3.2: The Basic Concept of Economic Order Quality (EOQ) Theory an example of
a false trade-off. The fundamental assumption behind the reasoning is that the cost of setup has to be accepted as a given input.
Shingo completed the conceptual development of the SMED system that helped to reduce the
set-up time on a large press at Toyota's main plant, first from four hours to one-and-a half hours,
and subsequently to three minutes. He then realised that any set-up could be performed in less
than 10 minutes and generalised the concepts he had applied into the SMED system (the term

33

'single minute' in SMED refers to a single-digit time span in minutes and does not imply a oneminute set-up). Shingo and others (Shingo 1989; Hall 1983; Mondenl983) have discussed
techniques for set-up time reduction in detail. The four conceptual stages of SMED are:

Stage One: No distinction is made between internal and external set-up.

Stage Two: The internal and external set-up operations are identified Delays in internal
set-up are targeted for elimination.
Stage Three: The possibilities of converting internal set-up operations to external set-up
are explored.
Stage Four: Additional improvements are made through eliminating adjustments and
streamlining clamping methods, leading to one-touch exchange of dies.

Shingo was able to achieve reductions in set-up time of 80 to 95 per cent on an average. The
implications of the SMED system were profound. Though the mathematics of EOQ theory
remained valid, what Shingo had done was to decimate set-up cost. The natural corollary was
that the economic lot size decreased. Manufacturers could produce in quantities that closely
matched demand. The move from large-scale, large-lot production to large-scale, small-lot
production became possible.

The Cost Reduction Imperative

Cost reduction is a fundamental goal of World-Class manufacturing, as explained earlier. The
cost reduction philosophy advocated by Ohno (1988) exhibits the same deceptive simplicity and
home-spun wisdom as his other views.
Ohno lists three formulae:
1. Selling price - cost = profit
2. Profit = selling price - cost
3. Selling price = cost + profit
Now these formulae appear to be the same at first sight. Ohno described this illusion as
'Arithmetic's blind spot'. As he put it, formula No.1 means that with competition around, the
selling price is determined by a third party. The task of reducing the cost to increase profit is
within the control of the manufacturer.
Formula No.2, however, implies that once an item has been manufactured at a certain cost, the
manufacturer must find a way to make a certain profit that he has targeted. Formula No. 3
implies that a certain cost has been incurred; given a desired profit margin, the selling price can
be arrived at.
Ohno wrote that 'for me, costs exist to be lowered-not calculated....Formulas may lead you
somewhere depending on how you approach them Those of us involved in industrial engineering
tend to see things in terms of Formula No.1.'
The upshot of all this is that we are no longer living in a 'cost-plus' world. This has become true
in India only recently for a wide spectrum of industry. Ohno had anticipated the concept of target
costing by a few decades
34

Benchmarking' Breakthrough: Copying the Supermarket System: The breakthrough that

fostered the development of World-Class manufacturing came when the functioning of American
supermarkets was adopted by Ohno as a model for material flows on the shop floor (Ohno 1992).
According to him:
A supermarket is where a customer can get: (1) what is needed, (2) at the time needed, (3) in the
amount needed. Sometimes, of course, a customer may buy more than what he or she needs. In
principle, however, the supermarket is a place where we buy according to our need. Supermarket
operators, therefore, must make certain that customers can buy what they need at any time.
Compared to Japan's traditional, turn-of-the-century merchandising methods, such as peddling
medicines door-to-door, going around to customers to take orders, and hawking wares, America's
supermarket system is more rational. From the seller's viewpoint, labour is not wasted carrying
items that may not sell, while the buyer does not have to worry about whether to buy extra items.
From the supermarket, we got the idea of viewing the earlier process in a production line as a
kind of store. The later process (customer) goes to the earlier process (supermarket) to acquire
the needed parts (commodities) at the time and in the quantity needed. The earlier process
immediately produces the quantity just taken (restocking the shelves).
We hoped that this would help us approach our just-in-time goal and, in 1953, we actually
applied the system in our machine shop at the main plant. The 'effects of this line of thinking
were profound. Today's management gurus would call it a paradigm shift. Conventionally, if
material flowed from a foundry shop to a machining shop, the foundry would try to produce to
the plan. The castings produced would be sent to the machine shop. Under the 'pull' system
inspired by the supermarket model, this mode of working was abandoned. Instead, the
subsequent process (the machine shop) would draw material from the preceding process (the
foundry) according to its needs. Thus, the concept of internal customers was operationalised. The
mechanism used for pulling material was the kanban system. Figure 3.3 shows Monden's (1983)
explanation of the working of a kanban system. Monden and other authors have also described
the various types of kanban that are used in the Toyota Production System. We will not go into
these details here, except to state that the two basic kinds of kanban are the production-ordering
or in-process) kanban (POK) and the withdrawal kanban (WK).
Production-ordering
Kanban (POK)
a

Withdrawal Kanban (WK)

b
Machining Line
(Preceding Process)

Assembly Line
(Subsequent Process)

Figure 3.3: Monden's Explanation of a Two-card Kanban System.

35

Products A, B and C are assembled on the assembly line. Parts a and b produced by the
machining line go into these products. They are stored as shown with POKs attached. A carrier
from the assembly line goes to the machining line with WKs, and picks up as many boxes of part
a as he has WKs. He detaches the POKs on the boxes of part a, attaches WKs to them, and brings
them to the assembly line. The detached POKs serve as an instruction to the machining line to
produce part a in the quantity withdrawn. When a box of part a is used up in assembly; the WK
which had been attached to it is taken to the machining line. The cycle is repeated.
The Japan Management Association (1986) has traced the use of kanban to a traditional
practice: It came from the practice whereby foremen in separate workplaces would write their
group's work content on slips of paper and post them, along with other foremen's, to show what
was going on. In other words, they were putting up their shingles (kanban), so to speak, and
hence this term. When one has his kanban up, it is a declaration that his kanban does not lie. 'If
there is any falsehood in what this shop and its kanban stand for, we do not expect any payment.'
In the old days, merchants declared this to their customers; our kanban lives by that tradition.
Indian managers tend to be enamored of the term 'kanban' without understanding the nature and
purpose of the kanban system. We were told of a case in which an Indian light commercial
vehicle (LCV) manufacturer with a Japanese collaboration took to the use of kanban. None of the
purported benefits of a kanban system were realised by the company. This was because-as every
authority on World-Class manufacturing has emphasized-the kanban system is simply one tool
for implementing the goals of World-Class manufacturing. Ohno (1992) described it as an
'operational tool that carries out the just-in-time production method.' A lot of groundwork has to
be done before going in for a kanban system, and World Class manufacturing can, in fact, be
implemented without actually going in for kanban. A pull system of material flows can also be
implemented through electronic signals or by simply circulating standardised containers between
preceding and subsequent lines.
Monden (1983) has noted that the kanban system is supported by the following management
practices:

Smoothing of production
Reduction of set-up time
Cellular plant layout
Standardization of jobs
Improvement activities
Autonomation

The use of kanban is meaningful only when all or most of these fundamentals have been attended
to. If kanban are used in a conventional environment, the only outcome will 'be that the number
of kanban that are in circulation will be large enough to compensate for all the waste that is built
into the process. In World-Class manufacturing, however, one of them means of continuous
improvement on the shop floor 'is reduction in the number of kanban being circulatedThis
reduce WIP and keeps manufacturing personnel on their toes to continually seek ways of
eliminating waste.

36

The functions and rules governing the kanban system have been clearly explained by Ohno
(Ohno 1992) through Table 3.1. Shingo (1989) later noted that of the six rules presented by
Ohno, only the third and fourth are kanban system rules, while the others are essentially rules
which follow from the basics of the Toyota Production. System. He emphasized the importance
of the third kanban system rule.
Table 3.1: Ohno's Explanation of the Kanban System's Functions and Rules
Functions of Kanban

Rules for Use

Provides pick-up or transport Information

Later process picks up the number of items

indicated by the kanban at the earlier process
Earlier process produces items in the quantity

Provides production information and sequence

indicated by the kanban
Prevents over production and excessive
transport
Serves as a work order attached to goods

No items are made or transported without a

kanban
Always attach a kanban to the goods

Prevents defectives by identifying the process

making the defectives

Defective products are not sent on to the

subsequent process. The result is 100 per cent
defect-free goods
Reduce the number of kanban to increase their
sensitivity

Reveals existing problems

Root Cause Analysis: The essential thrust of improvement activities in World-Class manufacturing is on identifying the root cause of an undesirable occurrence, and taking steps to ensure
that the cause is eliminated. Womack et al. (1990) made an interesting observation during their
visit to a Toyota assembly plant. They saw that every assembly worker could stop the assembly
line if a problem was found by simply pulling a cord above his workstation. As opposed to this,
only senior managers could stop the line at a General Motors plant (GM) that they visited.
Ironically, the Toyota line stopped very rarely but the GM line used to stop frequently.
This was made possible by the effort made at Toyota to ensure that the same problem never
occurred twice. The problem solving tool that was used for this was very simple: ask 'Why?' five
times. Ohno (1988) has provided the following example of this procedure:
1. Why did the machine stop? There was an overload and the fuse blew.
2. Why was there an overload? The bearing was not sufficiently lubricated
3. Why was it not lubricated sufficiently? The lubrication pump was not pumping
sufficiently.
4. Why was it not pumping sufficiently? The shaft of the pump was worn and rattling,
5. Why was the shaft 'worn out? There was no strainer attached and the metal scrap got in.

37

Shingo (1989) has explained the underlying concept:

There are some managers who believe that a variety of production problems can be overcome by
implementing Toyota's visual control system, which is also called random. It is a visual control
that communicates important information and signals the need for immediate action by
supervisors. At Toyota, however, the most important issue is not how 'quickly personnel are
alerted to a problem,' but what: solutions are' implemented. Makeshift or temporary measures,
although they may restore the operation to normal most quickly, are not appropriate. Nor is the
best response, when defects occur, to work overtime to produce the scheduled number of good
units. These solutions are like using an ice pack to cure appendicitis-it may relieve the pain for a
while, but only an appendectomy will prevent a recurrence. This is Toyota's approach -to
discover and implement solutions that permanently prevent a problem from recurring.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.3 THE PRACTICES OF WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Our discussion of World-Class manufacturing practices will be based on a basic model of a
manufacturing enterprise. There are many ways of looking at a manufacturing enterprise. A very
good one is to look at it from the perspective of the people who are involved with it. Figure 3.4
shows our basic model, which is based on this perspective. The entities which make up the
enterprise are customers, employees, owners, suppliers and the community that is affected by the
functioning of the enterprise. The equipment used by the employees is of course a part of the
enterprise. These entities typically have long-term associations with the enterprise. From another
perspective, manufacturing activity is composed of three kinds of flows: material, information
and money. Figure 3.4 puts these two perspectives together.

Figure 3.4: Model of a Manufacturing Enterprise

World-Class manufacturing practices, which follow from the philosophy outlined in the previous
section, cut across the entire model. The numbers 1 to 9 in the model represent the individual
sets of practices that collectively constitute World-Class manufacturing. We briefly mention
these practices:
38

The enterprise produces to order with short lead times for manufacturing and product
development, thus providing a flexible response to the customers needs.
Information flows across the enterprise are transparent. Information technology is used as
a strategic tool to further the concepts of World-Class manufacturing. Visual controls are
used to provide relevant information to employees at their workplaces.
The people in the enterprise show respect for humanity. They design systems that are
tailored to the needs of society and strive to eliminate waste of resources.
The owners provide leadership, instill constancy of purpose and drive out fear. Their
objective is to make money, but not at any cost to society.
Employees are given cross-functional inputs to the extent possible. They are trained in
the use of simple analytical tools which can be deployed for continuous improvement.
Operators are taught to be capable of handling multiple processes. Quality and
productivity are improved largely through suggestions from a motivated workforce.
Routine maintenance and housekeeping activities are entrusted to the operators of the
equipment. Operators have a sense of ownership of the equipment they use. This is the
essence of Total Productive Maintenance (TPM).
Equipment is not unnecessarily sophisticated. The capacity utilization of equipment is not
sought to maximize. Capacity utilization is simply viewed as a function of demand for
the company's finished goods. Cellular manufacturing concepts are used in plant layout.
Material flows throughout the system in a manner similar to the working of a giant
assembly line.
A supplier's manufacturing facility is simply viewed as a remote work centre. Long-term
associations are built up with a limited number of suppliers. These suppliers are helped to
manage their costs, and the benefits of cost reduction are shared between the company
and its suppliers. Product development is hastened by outsourcing a large part of the
design and engineering activity to suppliers at an early stage in the product development
effort. This practice is called early supplier involvement (ESI. One of the, objectives of
strategic sourcing is to buildup capabilities and trust to the extent that suppliers can
directly send small lots of materials or components to the shop floor. This eliminates the
waste of defective parts, inspection and storage.

The remainder of this section deals with World-Class manufacturing practices fewer than three
categories:

The customer interface (point I).

The suppliers interface (point 9).
World-Class practices in the factory (points 2 to 8).

The Customer Interface: Womack et al. (1990) have described the management of the
customer interface at Toyota. One objective of a World-Class manufacturer is, as they put it, 'to
develop a long-term, indeed a life-long relation between the assembler, the dealer and the buyer
by building the dealer into the production system and the buyer into the product development
process.'
The level of quality attained by Toyota enabled them to focus relentlessly on repeat buyers.
Toyota decided never to loose a former buyer. This objective was realised by using the data on
39

incomes, family sizes, driving patterns and tastes in its consumer database to predict changes in
the demands of Toyota buyers.
In sum, the order fulfillment process and the new product development process are shortened to
enable the linking of the factory, the distribution system and the consumers in a well-knit system.
Supplier involvement is an integral part of the process. The 'economy of scale' mentality gives
way to the 'economy of scope'. The result is flexibility of three kinds:

Volume flexibility
Mix flexibility
Design flexibility (i.e. an ability to develop new products faster)

This explains how, (Womack et al. 1990), Japanese automakers made 500,000 units of a car
model on an average, while Western automakers made 2,000,000. The biggest gainer from this
flexibility is the marketing function. Also marketing personnel help production keep a smooth
production schedule, an essential ingredient of World-Class manufacturing.
Apart from being used to track the changes in the market, IT is used extensively by World-Class
manufacturers to root out hidden delays in the order processing stage in the office.
The Supplier Interface: The conventional approach to purchasing began with a trade-off: the all
important make/buy decision. It was perceived that buying a raw material or component would
mean less control over quality and delivery. Against this, it would provide flexibility to the
company because it could vary the off-take depending on its needs. It did not need to incur fixed
costs. The need for antagonistic relationships between manufacturers and their suppliers was
reinforced by conceptual frameworks such as Michael Porter's five-force model for industry
analysis.
World-Class manufacturing turned this trade-off on its head as well. The point of departure from
conventional thinking here was to focus on the building up of durable, ten relationships with
suppliers. Holding an equity stake in the supplier resolved the problem of control. The concept
was that the destiny of the suppliers would be linked to a large extent with the World-Class
manufacturer.
The old system, which was equivalent to tendering, focused on the prices quoted by suppliers.
The order would be awarded to the supplier who quoted the lowest price after all the suppliers
had been played against one another. At best, there would be some weight age in the decisionmaking process for quality, delivery and flexibility.
A World-Class manufacturer focuses on the supplier's costs. The objective is not to estimate his
margin and then squeeze it, but to help the supplier reduce his costs. The benefits of cost
reduction exercises are shared between the supplier and the manufacturer. The capabilities of the
Supplier are not taken as. a given variable. The manufacturer, who is more advanced, sends his
personnel to the suppliers works to upgrade these capabilities. Suppliers' are organized into
tiers. The manufacturer directly deals with the first tier suppliers. The idea is to source systems
from a smaller no of first tier suppliers instead of sourcing components of hundreds of suppliers.

40

Supplier base reduction SBR-reducing the number of suppliers is viewed as a means of cutting
down on purchasing overheads and building up the capabilities of selected suppliers to meet the
needs of the manufacturer.
In the product development process, first-tier suppliers are an integral part of the product
development team. Their knowledge of the systems that they make is tapped extensively. They
are responsible for developing systems, which work in harmony with other systems and meet the
needs of the manufacturer. Early supplier involvement (ESI) is a key to faster product
development.
A key change, which takes place in the relations between the manufacturer and the supplier, is
that interaction between the two organizations is not the prerogative of the manufacturer's
purchase department and the supplier's marketing department. Interaction takes place across all
departments. For example, an operator who actually uses a component in assembly would
provide feedback to make assembly easier for the supplier's design department.
The goal of the World-Class manufacturer is to upgrade suppliers to the stage where they can
make 100 per cent on-time deliveries, just-in time and without any defects. This goal is not to be
achieved by forcing the supplier to build up stock piles; the supplier organization must also
practice World-Class manufacturing. Once this goal is reached, suppliers can directly ship raw
material and components to the manufacturer's shop floor. These items are not inspected or held
in a central store. This key achievement in the drive is to eliminate waste.
Maskell (1996) has advocated the following steps for world-class purchasing:
Step 1. Use contract or blanket orders with call-off reports. Purchase orders are not used for
every batch of purchased items. 'Rate contract' type agreements are signed with key suppliers.
Individual batches are pulled from the supplier through call-off reports.
Step 2. Introduce call-off from the shop-floor cells. Production personnel issue the calls for raw
materials or components themselves, instead of conveying this information indirectly through
stores and purchase.
Step 3. Eliminate inspection and dock-to-stock activities through standardization and
certification.
Step 4. Eliminate three-way matching. The manual matching of purchase order, receipt and
invoice information should be eliminated through the use of IT.
Step 5. Eliminate invoicing by creating automatic invoices through the receipt transaction.
Effective use of IT enables receipts to be checked against purchase orders. If the order materials
have been received, payment is due. Invoices can be done away with once this is realised,
Step 6. Eliminate the receipt and invoice process by creating transactions through back flushing
or electronic data interchange advance sales notices (EDI ASNs). Back flushing is the
computerized calculation of raw material or component consumption from production data.
Essentially, it implies having systems in place that reduce the available stock of refills by 1000 at
41

the end of a shift if 1000 pens have been produced. The concept of EDI ASNs is that if 1000
pens have been produced, 1000 refills must have been used and, therefore, payment for these is
due.
Step 7. Pay vendors just-in time through electronic funds transfer.
Needless to say, these steps are tenable only in a World-Class manufacturing environment.
Indian managers may consider the Maskell's scenario weird, but a closer examination of the
recommended steps reveals that only the last two are too futuristic for India, given its
infrastructural deficiencies. What the first five steps require is essentially a change in attitude as
well as a low-stock environment; good inter department communication and sound IT
infrastructure within the company.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.4 WORLD-CLASS PRACTICES IN THE FACTORY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Some key features of World-Class manufacturing shop floor practices have already been
explained in the basic principles of the process. These include:

The use of visual controls as aids for problem eradication.

The use of the SMED system for quick set-ups.
The use of kanban for operationalizing a pull system of material flow.
The use of autonomation, which enables workers to attend to more than one machine
each.

In this section, we turn our attention to other fundamental practices. These are:

Production leveling, which ensures that the pull system is workable.

Cellular manufacturing, which makes 'single piece flow' practical.
Production planning and control systems.
New product development practices.

Production leveling: The working of the supermarket-inspired pull system has been explained
earlier. Production leveling is a requisite for this system to function effectively. The demands
placed on a preceding process by its successor must not be so erratic that they cannot be met. As
Ohno (1992) put it, 'the greater the fluctuation in quantity picked up, the more excess capacity is
required by the earlier process.' The Japan Management Association (1986) described
autonomation and just-in-time material flows as the two pillars of the Toyota Production System,
while production leveling, or load-smoothing production, was described as the base of the system.
The essence of production leveling is that the flow of the various stock keeping units (SKUs)
produced by the company from the final stage in the production process is made as smooth as
possible. This places uniform loads on the 'upstream' processes.
Shingo (1989) explains the concept of production leveling with an example. A company has to
produce the following in a month:

42

300,000 units of product A

600,000 units of product B.
900,000 units of product C

The work content of all the products is the same. One possible approach could be to produce
300,000 As in the first 10 days of the month at 50 per cent capacity utilization. In the next 10
days, 600,000 Bs are produced at 100 per cent capacity utilization. Finally, in the last 10 days,
900,000 Cs are produced.
Naturally, this is not acceptable because of the sharp fluctuations in load. The traditional solution
would be to produce 300,000 of unit B along with the unit A during the first 10 days, and then
300,000 of unit during the next 10 days. This solves the problem of an even load.
Shingo points out a fundamental problem with this approach: there is a build-up of stock,
because the production pattern does not match the demand pattern. The 300,000. As which have
been produced in the first 10days will not be sold immediately. Some of them will have to be
held up till the end of the month.
Another implication of this pattern of production becomes clear if we consider an upstream
process that makes a part which goes into product A. This part would be required in large
quantities/in the first 10 days. Against this, no demand would be placed for the part in the next
20 days.
To solve these problems, two approaches are recommended under World-Class manufacturing:

Mixed production: A stream of As Bs and Cs is produced in the sequence A-BB-C-C-C. This sequence is repeated 3000 in the month.
Segmented production: 10,000 as, 20,000 Bs and 30,000 Cs are produced each day.

These approaches provide for a steady work load at all stages of production and minimizes stock
in the system. Needless to say, they are workable only if the use of the SMED system has led to
set-ups quick enough to support them. Thus, SMED enables production leveling, which in turn
makes a stockless pull system feasible.
Cellular Manufacturing: Conventional mass production is characterized by process or product
layouts. In process layouts, similar machines are located together. For example metal cutting
machines are grouped into lathes, milling machines, hobbing machines and so on. A press shop
houses presses; the machine shop houses metal cutting machines. A component has a number of
operations required to be performed on it, and the optimal routing of the component through the
machines is a fairly complex problem handled by production planners. (Process layouts are
precisely opposite to the concept of process orientation explained in previous section. The two
terms should not be confused).
In product layouts, high volume components are processed on dedicated machines, often
grouped into a transfer line with material handling between machines being automated through
'hard' automation. The machines are arranged in the order of the operations to be performed on
the component. Because of the large fixed costs involved, this is financially justifiable only if
the production volumes for the component are large and do not vary too much.

43

For many years, manufacturing professionals in the West strove to design sophisticated flexible
manufacturing systems (FMS) consisting of computerized numerical control (CNC) machining
centres, robot arms, automatically guided vehicles (AGV s) and automated storage and retrieval
systems (AS/RS). General Motors invested US$ 40 billion in the 1980s in such systems without
gaining any substantial productivity increases. The purported aim of these systems was to
achieve flexibility economically.
World-Class manufacturers achieved this goal through cellular manufacturing. The underlying
concept behind cellular manufacturing is group technology (GT). In essence, the approach
followed is to regroup dissimilar machines into cells capable of performing the entire set of
operations required to produce a particular component from a blank. The machines used are
typically inexpensive, medium capacity machines designed in house. Low capacity utilization of
these machines is tolerated. Schonbergers -1982 has described cellular manufacturing at a
Kawasaki plant in Japan
What was witnessed in the Akashi plant .were 6-ton or 8-ton or 10-ton presses instead of large
punch presses. Kawasaki toolmakers had designed and made small screw presses specifically for
notch0069ng and bending tubing into frame parts (of motorcycles). Each press is equipped with
its own die permanently in place, so that there is no set-up time and therefore no requirement for
training to set up and run. The welder runs the presses, and in a piece-by-piece just-in-time
mode. The screw presses are slow but sure. The welder may load one press to make one piece he
needs, then another press for a second piece, and another for a third piece and so on. As each
piece is finished in the press, the welder may place it in a welding jig and weld it growing the
motorcycle frame. Of course, the steps may be sequenced to minimize delays.
Figure 3.5 is a schematic sketch of a manufacturing cell. The operator picks up a blank
component from the in-bound stock point, loads it on the machines for processing and finally
leaves it at the out-bound stock point. The path traversed by the operator and the component is
the same. The number of operators can be varied as the demand for the component varies. In our
simplified model, the processing time estimates at each workstation include the material
handling time. This allows three possibilities:
No. of
Operators

Scheme of Operation

Op. 1 works on all workstations

22min

O min

Throughput in
440 Minutes
(Available Time in
an 8 -hour Shift)
20 units

Op. 1 works on first 5 workstations

Op. 2 works on the remaining 4

12min

1 min

37 units

Op. 1 works on first 3 workstations

Op. 2 works on next 3
Op. 3 works on the last 3

8min

1 min

55 units

44

Cycle
Time

Balance
Delay

Figure 3.5: The Concept of Cellular Manufacturing. Each rectangle represents a

workstation. The dotted line represents the path traversed by the components and the
operator(s). The figures given in minutes are the processing time estimates (including
material handling time).
Balance delay refers to the time wasted at a workstation group because of inefficiencies in
balancing the work equally between the operators. In a World-Class manufacturing environment,
these inefficiencies remain on paper. The differences in workloads are sorted out in a team
environment by shifting some tasks between operators to enable an equal distribution. Our
example is hypothetical, but it explains how cellular manufacturing provides flexibility of
volume and mix. The key requirements are multi skilled operators, cellular layout of reliable and
unsophisticated machines and streamlined material flows.
Operators can be re-assigned across cells in accordance with demand variations for different
component groups. They are capable not only of multi-machine handling, but multi-process
handling, as shown in Schonberger's example.
Maskell has enumerated the advantages obtained by World-Class manufacturers from cellular
manufacturing (1994):

Material handling-which would otherwise be required between distant groups of similar

machines, is reduced.
Cycle time is reduced because delays in moving material between groups of similar
machines are eliminated
Flexibility is facilitated by the development of multi-skilled workers.
Batch sizes can be made smaller: material movements across larger distances, as required
in a process layout, imply a larger batch size for economy of material handling.
45

People performing different operation work in close proximity. The entire process
through which value is added to the component becomes visible. This fosters team spirit.
Production scheduling is simplified: scheduling within the cells is not required.
Work-in-process inventory is reduced.

Cellular manufacturing enables the entire plant to function in assembly-line mode. It is an

integral part of the movement towards single piece flow. Shingo's four principles for creating
single piece flow are (Shingo 1989):
1. Level production quantities between processes and synchronies all processes (to
eliminate process delays).
2. Reduce transportation lot size to one (to eliminate lot delays).
3. Improve layout to compensate for the more frequent need for transportation.
4. Reduce lot size.
These principles are translated into practice through cellular manufacturing.
In addition, one of the biggest advantages of cellular manufacturing is that it facilitates
immediate feedback from the subsequent process if the preceding process produces a defect. This
enables the practice of the concepts of source inspection and Poka Yoke, which are explained in
the next section.
Production Planning and Control (PPC) Systems: Production leveling at the final stage in the
production process (e.g. final assembly) is an essential component of PPC in World-Class
manufacturing. Extensive use is made of it in PPC. However, the distinguishing feature of
World-Class PPC is that actual production at a stage in production only takes place in response
to the pull from the subsequent stage. Thus, the final stage drives the production system.
The hierarchy of manufacturing plans follows conventional practice. A representative
hierarchy of plans, based on Hall's (1993) description, is:

Long-range plans for new products, models and facilities.

Production plans for tools and materials, supplier planning and total manpower.
Master production schedules (MPS) for the final stage with a 3-6 month horizon.
Planned production schedules for preceding stages, based on the MPS for preceding
stages.
Final stage schedule: a 'firm' schedule, perhaps weekly, which actually drives the
entire supply chain.

The distinctive point about World-Class PPC is that the firm schedule is given only to the final
stage. This schedule drives the earlier stages, and thus fine-tunes the entire production activity
according to market demand.
Computer-aided planned production schedules are generated based on the planned finished
goods assembly or packaging (final stage) schedule, the MPS. The scheduling technique used
for this is often material requirements planning (MRP), which is explained in Chapter 3.
46

However, these schedules are meant only to advise production managers and managers of staff
functions so that they can prepare the upstream processes for the demands to be placed on
them by the final stage in terms of:

Material handling
Tool schedules
Preventive maintenance
Quality check routines
Equipment configurations
Manpower planning
Ongoing improvement projects

Producing to demand implies an ability to vary the level of output from the supply chain.
World-Class manufacturing practices make this possible. The resulting fluctuations in
manpower requirements require industry and culture-specific solutions. Shingo (1989) has
proposed two solutions Shingo (1989) has proposed two solutions for the problem. Firstly,
running two shifts with four hour breaks between them allows 50 percent increases in demand
to be met through overtime. Secondly, having excess capacity (this is affordable because the
equipment used is not very sophisticated and expensive) and using temporary workers allows
adjustments to throughput from the plant.
New Product Development Practices: The process orientation of the developers of WorldClass manufacturing was also reflected in the new product development practices. Womack et al.
(1990) describe a study that showed that between 1983 and 1987, a totally new Japanese car
required 1.7 million hours of engineering effort and took 46 months from concept to delivery. In
contrast, a similar US or European car took 3 million engineering hours and a 60 month time
frame. In addition, the Japanese product development practices resulted in a car that was easier
to manufacture and assemble. They describe four key attributes of the world class manufacturers
product development process:

Strong leadership of product development teams: The shortcomings of the matrix

organisation, which conventionally characterises development teams, are overcome by
giving line authority to the teams leader.
Teamwork: This is facilitated by keeping engineers on the team for the entire duration of
the project. They are not arbitrarily recalled to their parent departments.
Front-loaded effort profiles: The number of people involved in the team is highest at
the outset. This is the stage when decisions have tremendous implications. Design for
manufacturability (DFM) is one of the key objectives.
Concurrent engineering: Activities, which would conventionally be performed in
sequence, are performed in parallel to the extent possible. For example (at Honda), die
designers and body designers are in constant communication. Knowing the approximate
body parameters, the die designer begins the rough cutting of dies before the design is
finalized. The time taken to produce the dies is halved from two years to one year.

Dr Genichi Taguchis philosophy of robust quality is a vital input into the modem product
development process. Taguchi argued for a greater stress on off-line (pre-production) quality
47

engineering, as opposed to online (production-stage) quality control. According to this

philosophy, products must be designed so that they are robust, that is, they serve their intended
functions even in the face of variations in the environment they operate in. Certain experimental
designs - combination of the design parameters proposed by Taguchi help to speedily assess the
effect of the parameters on the functioning of the product.
The product development processes followed by World-Class manufacturers are superior in
terms of the key strategic imperatives in project management: time, cost, quality and safety.
They also result in products which are easier to manufacture.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.5 QUALITY IN WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Quality has been defined-and re-defined-ad nauseum by various authors and practitioners. We
will not add to the list of definitions here. A good working definition of Total Quality
management (TQM) Was provide by Rohinton Aga., the late CEO of Thermax., TQM is a
degree o)f excellence by which we .satisfy the customer' (italics ours). This concise definition
leads to three corollaries:

TQM is customer-centric.
Quality IS perceived as the responsibility of the entire organisation.
Since the customer's needs are continuously changing, TQM must necessarily
embody continuous improvement. Dahlgaard et al. (1995) have called it 'a journey
without an end.

Critics may pronounce this definition deficient in a number of ways. For example, it may be
pointed out that in today's environment, we must delight and not just satisfy the customer.
However, we aver that there are no sufficient conditions when it comes to TQM. There are
some necessary conditions and these are reflected in the definition.
Practically all writers on TQM (except those who see themselves as quality gurus in their own
right) ritually begin their work with a paean to William Edwards Deming. We are told how
Deming's first visit to Japan at the invitation of the Union of Japanese Science and Engineering
(JUSE) in 1950, followed by that of Joseph M. Juran in 1954, laid the foundations of the quality
revolution in Japan. Deming had predicted in 1950 that the Japanese would become world
leaders in industry in five years. Relatively fewer writers have bothered to explain the basic
concepts propounded by Deming and Juran.
Both Deming and Juran were disciples of Walter A. Shewhart, the originator of control charts
and the Plan-Do-Study-Act (P-D-S-A) cycle. They had worked under Shewhart at the Hawthorne
plant of the Western Electric Company in the 1920s. Though they were greatly revered in Japan
before being rediscovered by the West, some of the leading exponents of agile manufacturing
later rejected their approaches. Shigeo Shingo has harshly criticized the statist1cal approach to
quality management propounded by Deming and Juran.

48

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.6 DEMING'S APPROACH TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Deming is famous for his 14 points, which he referred to as 'the basis for the transformation of
American industry' (Dahlgard et a1.1995). These points are:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Constantly improve the quality of products and services

Adopt the new philosophy
Eliminate he need for mass inspection
End the practice of choosing suppliers on the basis of price alone 5. Constantly improve
the system
5. Institute training on the job
6. Institute leadership
7. Drive out fear
8. Break down barriers between departments
9. Eliminate slogans, exhortations and arbitrary targets for the workforce
10. Eliminate numerical quotas for the workforce and the management
11. Create pride
12. Institute a vigorous programme of education and self-improvement for everyone
13. Make everyone in the firm take action to accomplish the transformation
It is not necessary to implement the points in the above order. Also, the points are quite
interdependent-for example, nine points are dependent on point 8 ('drive out fear'), which
Deming himself considered a key point. Deming did not give managers the liberty to selectively
apply these points. 'Don't say you're going to obey some of them but not the others.'
Deming himself described these 14 points as the outcome of his system of profound knowledge.
He described profound knowledge as 'knowledge or leadership of transformation' and stressed
upon the need to apply profound knowledge instead of perpetuating the practices conventionally
advocated by business schools. 'The purpose of a school of business should not be to perpetuate
the present style of management, but to transform it' (Deming 1993)
Deming started that profound knowledge was composed of four interrelated pats:

Appreciation for a system

Knowledge of variation
Theory of knowledge
Psychology

Deming's discussion of these components provides a fascinating insight into his basic tenets.
Appreciation for a System: Deming defined a system as 'a network of interdependent
components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system. He emphasised the
following attributes of a system:

Without an aim, there is no system. This aim must be clear to everyone in the system and
49

must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.
The components need not be clearly defined and documented.
A system must be managed to ensure that work is done toward the aim of the system.
Left to themselves, the components tend to become 'selfish, competitive, independent
profit centres'.
The recommended aim for any organisation is 'for everybody to gain- . Stockholders,
employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment--over the long term'.
A system includes competitors. Deming has noted that adversarial competition between
companies often leads to lose-lose situations.

Though these concepts seem to be highly abstruse, they led Deming to come out with the
diagram shown in Figure 3.6. This diagram seems deceptively simple. As Deming described it:
The flow diagram was the spark that in 1950 and onward turned Japan around. It displayed to
top management and to engineers a system of production. The Japanese had knowledge, great
knowledge, but it was in bits and pieces, uncoordinated. This flow diagram directed their
knowledge and efforts into a system of production geared to the market. The whole world
knows about the results. This simple flow diagram was on the blackboard at every conference
with top management in 1950 and onward. It was on the blackboard in the teaching of
engineers. This diagram, as an organisation chart, is far more meaningful than the usual
pyramid. It shows the chain of command and accountability. If a pyramid conveys any message
at all, it is that anybody should first and foremost try to satisfy his boss (get a good rating). The
customer is not in the pyramid.

Figure 3.6: Deming's View of Production as a System (circa 1950). Improvement in quality
envelopes the entire production line, from incoming materials to the customer, and
redesign of the product and service for the future.
Knowledge of Variation: The crux of Deming's philosophy lies in his emphasis on the
understanding of variations. Understanding the variability inherent to a process helps us to avoid
two kinds of mistakes:

To react to an outcome as if it came from a special cause, when it actually came from
common causes of variation.

50

To treat an outcome as if it came from common causes of variation, when it actually

came from a special cause.

Statisticians are familiar with these two types of errors-they call them Type 1 and Type 2 errors.
In his training seminars, Deming used to teach the principles of the knowledge of variations
through his famous red beads experiment, briefly described here:
1. Material used: 4,000 wooden beads about 3 mm in diameter. Of these 800 are red and
3,200 white. A paddle with 50 depressions that will scoop up 50 beads.
2. Procedure: The foreman (Deming) invites 10 volunteers (6 willing workers, 2
inspectors, 1 inspector general and 1 recorder) from the audience. The workers are to
scoop up 50 beads (symbolising one production lot) at a time from the mixed beads. The
customer wants only white beads, not red ones. Red beads are thus treated as defects.
Management has declared a numerical goal: not more than three defects in a production
lot.
3. Results: The percentage of defects (red beads) in each production lot is found to vary
within an upper and lower control limit. Because of the foreman's exhortations, threats
and cajoling, the workers put in their best efforts, but they are unable to meet the target of
3 defects per production lot, and the company winds up. Workers who produce less red
beads are rewarded, but they do not maintain their superior performance. The plant winds
up.
4. Lessons: The workers were working in the same environment, the same beads (raw
material), the same paddle (equipment) and the same procedures (operations) and the
same foreman (leadership). The variation in the output was built into the operation itself.
There was nothing the workers could have done about it.
The control chart is a tool which helps people in the organisation to distinguish between
variations that are due to common causes (that is, they are within the limits prescribed by the
variability inherent to a process) and those due to special causes. A process is said to be in a
stable state the so-called state of statistical control-if the outputs produced by it are within the
upper and lower control limits. There are well-known procedures for calculating these limits,
which we will not go into here.
Control charts have been designed for the mean and range of a continuous variable (e.g. the
diameter of a shaft), the number of defects per sample, the number of defective items in a sample
and so in. Cumulative Sum (CUSUM) charts are used because of their power to detect trends in
variation.
Figure 3.7 shows what a control chart may look like. Our objective here is to explain the use of a
control chart, and not its mechanics. Shewhart, the inventor of control charts, referred to chance
and assignable causes of variation. Deming later used the terms common and special causes. The
essence of applying control charts in simple (Deming 1993) words is: 'Plot points. A point
outside the control limits is a signal (an operational definition for action) of a special cause
(called by Dr Shewhart an assignable cause), which indicates the need for action-try to identify
the special cause, and if it can recur, eliminate it.'

51

Figure 3.7: Example of a Control Chart. The chart plots the arrival time of a school bus at
a time and lower control limits have been calculated according to standard rules based on
ability distribution. The chart shows that there is no point in blaming the driver for not at
8.30 a.m. The variability in arrival time is due to common causes; probably traffic arrival
time with the new driver exceeds the UCL. This is assignable to a special cause.
Controls charts are a cornerstone of the implementation of Deming's Philosophy. The steps
prescribed by him for the effective use of control charts are (Deming 1993):
1. Decide what quality characteristic to plot, what kind of chart may be Plan for data
collection. Decide scales for format of the chart eve statistical control of the system of
measurement
2. Start the chart; consider revision of the plan in the light of observations.
3. Work on special causes (indicated by a point outside the control limits).
4. Reach a state of statistical control.
5. Work on some change in the process for improvement resulting in (a) less variation (b) a
different mean level. If no change is made, drop the chart. Restore it periodically to learn
whether statistical control continues.
Thus, Deming intended control charts to be used as only tools for tangible governments in
processes. Attaining statistical control was only as end. Deming viewed the first three steps as
the responsibility and people working close to the process, and the last step as responsibility of
management
Theory of Knowledge: According to Deming, 'the theory of knowledge teaches us that a statement, if it conveys knowledge, predicts future outcome, with risk of being wrong and that it fits
without failure observations of the past. Deming cites the parable of a rooster who had a theory

52

that the sun rose every morning because of his crowing. One morning, he forgot to crow and the
sun still rose. The shattered rooster realised that his theory needed revision. Others may infer
from this example that the theory is useless. Deming uses the example to illustrate that if the
rooster did not have a theory, there would be nothing to revise. Deming believed that 'information, no matter how complete and speedy, is not knowledge. Knowledge has temporal spread.
Knowledge comes from theory.'
The quest for knowledge, leading to continuous improvement, is sym1bolised in the famous
PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) cycle. Deming introduced this cycle to the Japanese in 1950, calling
it 'The Shewhart Cycle for Learning and Improvement', after its originator W. A. Shewhart. The
Japanese were so enamored of Deming's teachings that they quickly took to this cycle and called
it the Deming cycle instead. Some authors refer to the cycle as the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act)
cycle. Like Deming's view of production as a system (Figure 3.6), the PDSA cycle is deceptively
simple. The change in mentality that it wrought was far-reaching. Kaizen and the continuous
improvement philosophy were outcomes of the line of thinking embodied in this cycle.
Psychology: Deming has strongly criticized systems of forced ranking, rating and rewards. As he
puts it (Deming 1993), 'People are born with a need for relationships with other people and need
love and esteem by others. One is born with a natural inclination to learn. Learning is a source of
innovation. One inherits a right to enjoy his work. Good management helps us to nurture and
preserve these positive innate attributes of people. 'Deming distinguishes between extrinsic
motivation (such as that provided by financial incentives) and intrinsic motivation (which results
from the workers' sense of pride and ownership in work). This is the reasoning behind his points
10, 11 and 12. The 'forces of destruction', which destroy the human self-esteem, dignity and joy in
learning, include:

Forced distribution of grades in schools

Merit systems which put people into slots and cause resentment
Incentive pay
Numerical goals without a method

Figure 3.8: The PDSA Cycle

53

Demings teaching revoutionalised industry across the world. In the 1980s he was rediscovered
by American managers as rediscovered by American managers as 'The Man Who Disqualify'.
Beginning with the Ford Motor Company, a number of American companies turned to him for
advice. His teachings remain greatly relevant to Indian industry today. However, his lofty
philosophy was most visible translated into tangible manufacturing practices in the form of the
statistical approach to quality control. This approach was rejected outright by pioneers of World
Class manufacturing, as we shall see in the next section.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.7 SHINGOS APPROACH TO QUALITY MANAGEMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Shingos demolition of the conventional wisdom of EOQ theory was ex the previous section.
Shingo brought his fundamentals-oriented to bear on the area of quality management as well.
The result was a radically new approach, based on 100 per cent source inspection and ~ systems.
These concepts will be explained shortly. We will in Shingo's views on statistical quality control
(SQC). Shingo (1987) recounts his first encounter with SQC with sarcasm:
In 1957, when I was head of the Education Division of the Japan Man1t Institute, a Mr. Y from
Nippon Electric came to see me at my office one day.
'Do you know about quality control?' he asked me.
'You mean carrying out strict inspections to reduce defects?' I replied. Wrong' Mr. Y replied.
'It's not quality control if you don't use statistics. Shingo (1987) also relates another incident
which took place 20 years later:
In 1971, on my first overseas study tour, I visited the Wotan Company in Frankfurt, West
Germany. There, one of my colleagues, Mr. K, asked our hosts if they carried out quality control.
'Of course we do, the chief engineer replied.
'And yet,' said Mr. K, 'you haven't got a single control chart posted in your plant. '
'What's a control chart?' the engineer asked.
With a triumphant air, Mr. K proceeded to explain control charts to the Wotan representative. At
length the engineer replied, 'thats a very interesting idea, but don't you think it' fundamentally
wrong headed?' 'What are you talking about?' Mr K retorted.
'In what you've just described, you take action after defects have already occurred. Our approach
is to take action before the defects show up in the first place. By the way,' the Wotan engineer
continued, 'what's the defect rate in your company?'
'Only about 2.5 per cent,' said Mr. K.
'That's interesting,' our host replied. 'Our defect rate is about 0.3 per cent.'
At this Mr. K lapsed into silence.
Contempt for inspection was one of the pillars of conventional TQM theory-the notion was that
quality has to be built in, not inspected in. Shingo (1989) had a different viewpoint: he
distinguished between judgment inspection and informative inspection.
Judgment Inspection: The kind of inspection which was discouraged by conventional TQMtakes place at the final stage of production and 'simply distinguishes defective from nondefective products and issues a 'post-mortem certificate'. However, if the objective is to reduce
the defect rate, defects must be uncovered as soon as they are produced. The owner (operator) of

54

the process which produced them must immediately be informed so that corrective action is
immediate. The idea behind the corrective action is to ensure that the root cause of the defect is
identified and eliminated. Such a scheme of inspection is called Informative inspection.
'Judgments inspections discover defects, while informative inspections reduce them. The
objective of inspection must be to reduce the defect rate and not to detect defects. This objective
is realised when inspection provides 'immediate, accurate feedback at the source of defects.
Shingo (1989) was greatly influenced by an observation made by the managing director of
Matsushita Electric in 1965. This observation was that each consumer purchased only one
television set out of the company's total output of one million set. If the set produced by a
consumer was defective, his faith in the company would be destroyed. However, under sampling
inspection and SQC approaches, this would have been perfectly acceptable to the company. This
led him to rea1ise the need for methods which could assure quality with the thoroughness of 100
per cent inspection and the ease of sampling inspection. Shingo also noted that control charts, in
practice, are a form of judgment inspection. This is because there is usually a time lag between
occurrence of the defect and action being taken on it. As he put it (Shingo 1989), 'somewhere
along the line means and ends became confused; the notion that you cannot have quality control
without using statistics supplanted the original, valid concepts. '
Shingo suggested two kinds of informative inspection:

Self inspection: the worker is given the responsibility of inspecting his or her products.
Successive inspection: the worker at a station inspects each piece passed on by the
worker at a preceding station.

Though self-inspection will usually lack objectivity, it can be enhanced with the use of devices
that automatically detect defects or mistakes. Such devices are called Poka Yoke or mistakeproofing devices. Interestingly, the term originally used by Shingo was baka yoke, which means
foolproof. The term was abandoned because it could be misconstrued) imply that the operator
who produced the defect was a fool. Poka Yoke devices can be used to shut down the machine or
line when an abnormality detected, or to issue a warning signal.
Poka Yoke devices are typically simple and robust. Shingo provides an example of one used at
Matsushita Electric. In a vacuum cleaner packing line, the packed box was weighed to ensure
that no parts were missing. In spite of this, complaints of instruction manuals and small parts
being missing were reported, the production manager decided to go in for a Poka Yoke
devices.. A stopper on the roller conveyor line would be retracted only if two limit switches-one activated when the stand containing manuals was pushed down to pick up a manual, and a
similar switch for the stand containing the small parts-had been activated. Otherwise, the box
would be stopped and a buzzer would sound. Complaints dropped to zero within two months.
Figure 3.9 shows another example of a Poka Yoke device. Such devices illustrate a basic idea: it
is human to make errors-but errors need not lead to defects, if they are detected and prevented
from occurring in time, Errors and defects are not the same thing. Source inspection is the term
used by Shingo to denote inspection that prevents defects by controlling the conditions that
influence quality at their source.

55

Figure 3.9: Poka Yoke for Bending Cover Edges. An automobile component processed for
the left and right sides of the vehicle had identical contours except for the position of a hole.
The part was designed to be bent on the right side, but occasionally right- and left-handed
components were interchanged. A limit switch was installed on the press at the point where
the hole should be located. If the hole was not in that position, the limit switch would be
activated, the press would shut down and a buzzer would sound to alert the worker.
Control charts may have the same purported objective of reduction of defects through
highlighting special occurrences, but Shingo' s system (which he called zero quality control) of
source inspection and Poka Yoke consists of a more hands-on approach to quality management.
The efforts of Shingo and others propelled some manufacturer to what we would today describe
as World Class quality. This achievement was reached two decades ago as related to Shingo
(1987)
In 1977, the Shizuoka plant of Matsushitas Washing Machine Division had succeeded in
attaining a continuous record of one month with zero defects on a drainpipe assembly involving
23 workers. Five years later, Schonbergers (1982) wrote that 'statistical tools are not quite so
important in the spectrum of concepts that constitute Japanese total quality control as are some of
the more conceptual factors.' He identified three key managerial traits that lead the Japanese to
superior quality performance:

Making quality the responsibility of the production (not QC) department.

The habit of improvement-as opposed to the desire to keep things stable.
The drive for perfection.

Schonbergers.described seven basic principles of TQC as practiced by Japanese manufacturers:

56

1. Process control-every process was checked for control, but the responsibility was shifted
to production personnel. Also, SQC was not the primary tool that was used for this.
2. Easy-to-see quality, leading to what would later be called the 'visual factory'.
3. Insistence on compliance-'urgency' would not be accepted as an excuse for shipping out
defectives.
4. Line stop-the authority to stop the production line in case of a quality problem was given
to workers. However, the underlying philosophy was that each line stop must lead to a
root cause analysis to eliminate the source of the defect.
5. Correcting one's own errors-the worker or work group which made defective parts is
responsible for rectification. There are no separate rework lines.
6. The cent check- acceptance sampling techniques for items lots were rejected by the
Japanese because:

The notion of lots itself is in opposition to agile manufacturing concepts.

The statistical tables used for acceptance sampling require the acceptable per cent
defective as an input; even in 1982, the Japanese were talking about defects in
parts per million (PPM)
Sampling does not ensure that no customer gets a defective item.

7. Project-by-project improvement-today, this would be called continuous improvement.

These principles reflect the impact of the thinking of Shingo and others on quality management.
World-Class manufacturing implies that these precepts are understood and implied throughout
the organisation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.8 ASSESSING THE TWO BASIC APPROACHES TO QUALITY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------We have presented two path-breaking approaches to quality management. Indian managers must
be able to understand the basics of both these approaches. We believe that coming anywhere
close to the goal of zero defects requires thorough application of Shingo's approach on the shop
floor. However, Deming's philosophy should not be confused with its most commonly used tool,
the control chart. We feel that there is a place for SQC as a managerial tool to focus efforts,
provided the usage of tools like control charts does not become an end in itself. Hall (1983) has
provided a perspective to reconcile the two approaches: 'The purpose of bringing each process
under statistical control is to make 100 per cent automatic inspection useful for making
corrections and improvements. If the range of controllability of the process is narrowed enough,
then, for practical purposes, the probability of even one part being made outside the accepted
range for 'normal' reasons is zero. Then, if even one part outside this range is found, it becomes
feasible to shut down the process, find the cause, and correct it. '
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.9

CONCLUSION:
THE
MANUFACTURING

CULMINATION

OF

WORLD-CLASS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The philosophy and practices of World-Class manufacturing create an enterprise that works in
tandem with its suppliers to provide a World-Class response to the voice of the customer. Two
key processes are focused on:
57

The order fulfillment process, and

The new product development process.

These processes strengthen the demand creation process. The managers of the demand creation
process leverage the strengths of these two processes and, in turn, and work towards supporting
their continuous evolution. This results in the Wor1d~Class manufacturing network shown in
Figure 3.10. In this network, the enterprise of Figure 2.1 is shown in relation to other players in
the supply chain. The enterprise interacts with its suppliers and complementers (e.g. companies
that provide finance to the customers) to deliver value to customers and sustain its competitive
edge in the market.

Fig. 3.10: A World Class Manufacturing Network

The key to survival and growth remains the demand creation process. The difference in a WorldClass manufacturing network is that the new product development and order fulfillment
processes have a mutually strengthening effect. These processes encompass the suppliers and
complementers of the enterprise to create a responsive supply chain.

58

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SYSTEM AND TOOLS FOR WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
4.1 The Integration Imperative
4.2 Overview of Systems and Tools: Making Sense of the Manufacturing Alphabet Soup
4.2.1 Information Management Tool
4.2.2 Material processing and handling Tools
4.3 Information Management Tools
4.3.1Product and Process Design Tools
4.3.2 Bar Code System
4.3.3 Kanban
4.3.4 Statistical Quality Control
4.3.5 Business Integration and Decision Support Tools
4.4 Material Processing and Handling Tools
4.4.1 Flexible Manufacturing system
4.4.2 Rapid Prototyping
4.4.3 Lean Production tool
4.4.4 Poka Yoke
4.4.5 Single Minute Exchange of Dies
4.5 An Assessment of Manufacturing Systems and Tools
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.1 THE INTEGRATION IMPERATIVE

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A contemporary view of the logistics function is that it deals with the management of material
and information flows linking the organizations suppliers and customers. This leads to the use
of the 'supply chain' to denote the network of agencies (suppliers, functions within the
organisation, trade channels and consumers) that process materials and information to add value
to them and deliver a package of products and benefits to a consumer. The importance of the
supply chain was emphasised by Porter (1985), who took a strategic view of what he called the
value chain. Porter's view was that the activities of the value chain provide an opportunity for the
firm to take a competitive stance, with respect to its customers, by focusing on some segments of
the value chain.
Peter Drucker (1989) emphasised the importance of a 'systems' approach to manufacturing,
identifying it as one of the four key managerial foundations of 'the factory of 1999'. 'As soon as
we define manufacturing as the process that converts things into economic satisfactions, it
becomes clear that producing does not stop when the product leaves the factory. By 1999,
systems manufacturing will have an increasing effect on how we design and remodel plants and
on how we manage manufacturing businesses. '

59

The effect of delays in the supply chain was, however, first pointed out by Forrester (1958). In a
study, which remains a subject of discussion more than four decades later, Forrester showed that
a simple 10 percent step increase in demand for a product could cause wild fluctuations peaking?

Figure 4.1: The Concept of the Value Chain, as Proposed by Portar (1985)
At an amplitude of 40 per cent in production volumes for a year Forrester hoped that in time 'the
company will come to be recognized not as a collection of separate functions but as a system in
which the flows of information, materials, manpower, capital equipment and money set up forces
that determine the basic tendencies toward growth, fluctuation and decline. '
The term 'supply chain' was not in vogue then, but today it is widely accepted that the essence of
sound supply chain management is to replace inventories of materials with those of information
and process skills. The idea, as Ohno (1988) put it, is to continuously shorten the order
fulfillment process. This shortening is driven more by a need to respond quickly to market
changes than the desire to cut interest costs. Organizations that carry large inventories will
naturally need to clear their clogged supply pipelines before implementing product changes.
The integration of the supply chain requires what is called a process orientation. Not
surprisingly, this is the foundation of present-day production and information management
thought. The key to understanding the process perspective is Shigeo Shingo's model of
production, which was evolved more than three decades before business process re-engineering
became a catchphrase. As explained earlier, the key to improving production is to improve
processes, not operations.
Scheer (1994) has reflected the same process orientation in his framework for an integrated IT
infrastructure. 'Business functions are linked by decision and process relationships, and when
objects (or outputs) are processed, they typically pass through several functions. For example, an
order passes from sales through production and purchasing to accounts receivables and is
processed further in the controlling and sales/marketing information systems. If each function
60

manages its own data, the object relationship of processes results in redundancy the primary
problem is one of logical data consistency An approach of this type overlays a processoriented view across the functions.' What Scheer has not highlighted is the tremendous impact of
integrated systems on visibility across the supply chain. This visibility is what enables leaner
supply systems. Scheer's Integrated Information Systems framework, which is reflected in the
architecture of ERP/SCM systems, is shown in Figure 4.2.

Figure 4.2: Sheers Integrated Information Systems Framework

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.2 OVERVIEW OF SYSTEMS AND TOOLS: MAKING SENSE OF THE

MANUFACTURING ALPHABET SOUP
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The hype of marketers -accompanied by the profusion of three letter acronyms (ironically, called
TLAS by some) - has made it difficult for practicing executives to cut through the clutter of
buzzwords and focus on the functionalities of manufacturing tools. As suggested by Baudin
61

(1990) in his Triple flow model, the activities carried out by people in a manufacturing firm can
be viewed as a network of flow of materials, money and information. All the manufacturing tools
described in this chapter are marketed as a means of controlling material and information flows
to give better money flows.
The tools, which would commonly be acknowledged as advanced, can be classified into two
broad groups based on their role in manufacturing systems:

4.2.1 Information Management Tools

Product and process design tools, which are used to create and manipulate data on
products and processes. These include Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided
Engineering (CAE), Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP), Product Data
Management (PDM) and Group Technology (GT).
Lean production tools, very often dubbed as Japanese manufacturing techniques or justin-time (JIT) tools, such as the famous kanban.
Statistical Quality Control (SQC) tools.
Bar coding systems.
Decision support, execution and business tools, which are today some of the hottest
mantras in the market. These include Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II),
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), Supply
Chain Management (SCM) solutions and Data Warehousing/Data Mining.

4.2.2 Material Processing and Handling Tools

Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS), typically consisting of Computer Numerically

Controlled (CNC) machines, industrial robots, Automatically Guided Vehicles (AGVs)
and Automated Storage and Retrieval (AS/RS) systems.
Lean production tools, Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) and Poka Yoke.
Rapid Prototyping.

Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) is best viewed as the universal set of which the above
tools (with the exception of lean production tools) are a subset. We will focus on the evolution
and roles of these tools, without going into technical detail. We will also take a brief look at two
technologies-the Internet and groupware-that have opened up a huge arena of possibilities for
manufacturers recently. We will conclude by trying to assess the tools, techniques and
technologies from an integrated framework.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.3 INFORMATION MANAGEMENT TOOLS

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.3.1 Product and Process Design Tools

Computer Aided Design (CAD), Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) and Product
Data Management (PDM): CAD systems basically assist product designers in creating
virtual models of products with minimal effort being consumed in the menial task of

62

drafting. In the initial years of CAD, this was viewed as the primary advantage of
computer application in design. Today, it is recognized that these models enable
engineers to study product geometry and layout, and create specifications for
manufacturing. More importantly, CAE software packages are available to subject these
models to Finite Element Analysis (FEA), to help engineers study mechanical or thermal
stresses. Most important of all, the modeling of product data in soft form lays the
foundation for computer assisted manufacturing.

Computer Aided Process Planning (CAPP): CAPP is the link between the engineering
and manufacturing processes. The objective of CAPP is the generation of detailed
manufacturing instructions, given (a) the desired geometry of the end product (from the
CAE/PDM database), (b) the geometry of the raw material from which it is to be used as
the input in the manufacturing process, and (c) process parameters and the tools
available. Two generic kinds of CAPP approaches are followed: in generative CAPP, the
process plan is detailed from scratch, with the given inputs. In variant CAPP, the idea is
that the process planner retrieves a similar existing process plan from a classified library
of process plans and then makes the necessary minor modifications. The role of the
Variant CAPP software is in retrieving a process plan closest to the one that the planner is
working on. This retrieval is based on Group Technology (GT).

Group Technology (G T): Group Technology (GT) is a simple but immensely useful
technique which, as its name suggests, deals with the grouping of items into classes based
on some attribute. The classical GT problem relates to the formation of part machine
families. As shown in Figure 4.3, the input to the classical part machine problem is a
route sheet matrix, in which a 'I' in any cell indicates that the part is routed through the
machine. For instance, operations on Part I are performed on machines A, C, E and G.
The objective is to form groups of parts that have common process routes. The output
matrix shows that the parts can be grouped into three similar families.
Grouping can be done based on any attribute, and groups find applications in many areasprocess planning, as explained above is just one of them. Groups of aggregates, which
have similar design attributes, can be used for speeding up the design process. GT
algorithms have long been an area of interest for researchers, with algorithms ranging in
complexity from those based on repeatedly sorting rows and columns after weighting
them as binary numbers to those based on fuzzy ~logic and other techniques. However,
the most visible impact of GT has been in the development of cellular manufacturing.
As discussed in the previous chapter, the cellular manufacturing approach pioneered at
Toyota consists of arranging machines in small clusters dedicated to specific part
families. The machines are usually inexpensive, general purpose machines with basic
production tooling facilitating quick changeover. The clusters are typically U-shaped and
they are manned by a variable number of cross-trained operators. The operator moves
with the part as it is processed on each machine. Production is carried out to demand,
largely based on the consumption of the part produced by the cell. If demand is low, a
single operator can perform all the operations. Needless to say, capacity utilization is not
a performance parameter for production personnel in this dispensation. This is how the

63

manufacturing strategy shifts from the production-oriented capacity utilization mindset to

the market-oriented demand driven mindset and is embedded in shop-floor practices.

4.3.2 Bar Code Systems

Bar coding is a technique for instantaneous acquisition of event data into computerized systems.
Data is stored in the form of a series of bars and white spaces, based on standards such as the
Universal Product Code (UPC).
The key components of a full-fledged bar coding system are:

The medium-an adhesive label, card or document on which the bar code symbol is
printed.
Printers-typically ink-jet or laser printers are used
Scanners-these are optical devices, mostly hand-held, consisting of an emitter, a detector
and an optica1lens. They extract the bar code data from a printed bar code symbol.
Readers- take data reconstructed by scanners and convert into some other usable forms
such as ASCII text.

Bar codes have been around for a long time now, but in India, the most visible applications are
seen in postal and courier services. Globally, the spread of retailing has been a key factor pushing
bar coding.
In the Indian scenario, where the major chunk of sales-in durab1es as well as in
consumab1es~takes place from retailers who do not have a computer, this push has been missing.
However, bar coding remains a technology with huge promise for industry applications.
For instance, consider the problem of' as-built' bills of material (BOMs) on project sites. These
BOMs are records that track the actual usage of components on various sites or structures.
If expensive components and spares are bar coded, capturing milestone data (e.g. the date of
delivery and the date of installation) become easy.
This data can then be used to monitor inventories and track warranties. Without bar coding, the
same task would be immensely difficult. Similarly, bar coding can be used to maintain real-time
information on order fulfillment in a job shop.

64

Figure 4.3: An illustration of Group Technology (GT) based Part Machine Family
Formation

4.3.3 The Kanban: A Lean Production Tool

Lean production, WCM, agile manufacturing and other terms are essentially different names for
the same manufacturing management philosophy. This is a philosophy that has been described in
detail by a number of authors and summarized by us in Chapter 2. The origins of this philosophy
can be traced to the Toyota Production System (though the creators of this system themselves
state that they were inspired by Henry Ford). But today, most of its best practices are accepted as
sound propositions worldwide. The essence of the philosophy is that manufacturers work
towards continuously shortening two key processes-the order fulfillment process and the new
65

product development process-through the elimination of activities that do not add value to the
product. This results in an organization that can respond with agility to market changes.
The most famous lean production tool is the kanban-is Japanese for signal. The purpose of
kanban is to signal a demand for items at an operation centre to an upstream operation centre.
Kansans have been discussed in Chapter 2.
What executives must understand is that there is nothing great about a 'kanban system' per se. A
plant can implement a kanban system without quitting down .on inventories by simply using a
larger number of kanbans.
As discussed in earlier the challengelies in creating the organizational climate in which the
kanban serves as a useful information tool for the shop floor. A pull system can, in fact, be
implemented electronically, without paper kanbans being used.

4.3.4 Statistical Quality Control (SQC)

The idea behind SQC is continuo interesting actionable results. In a famous case, quality expert
J.M. Juran recalls how a Pareto analysis of defects in a brand of photocopiers revealed that
nothing had changed significantly in 10 years. It took Juran to point out to the company that this
indicated a singular of market sensitivity.
Operationally, the most common SQC tool used is the control chart. The purpose of a control
chart is to sound an alert when a process starts producing an output outside the acceptable range
it is capable of adhering to. This range is measured and specified in terms of upper and lower
control limits.
The output from the process is continuously monitored and plotted on a chart that indicates the
control limits. Any abnormality in the output-such as a point outside or close to the control
limits, or a trend towards either of the limits-serves as a trigger to the person operating the
process that corrective action has to be taken.
The use of statistical tools was initiated by Shewhart in the 1930s, and later popularised by
Deming and Juran. Their contribution to the emergence of Japan as a global manufacturing
powerhouse is widely recognized.
However, some leading Japanese practitioners are skeptical about these tools. They strongly
advocate an effort towards zero defects through the use of Poka Yoke, practical tools for
mistake-proofing operations. These tools are described later in this chapter.

66

Figure 4.4: A Basic Quality Control Chart

4.3.5 Business Integration and Decision Support Tools

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems and Supply Chain Management (SCM)
Solutions:
Until a few years ago, ERP systems were touted as the hot new mantras for managing change.
The conventional wisdom now is that they are necessary but not sufficient for survival in today's
competitive markets. .SCM solutions are the 'new kids on the block' in terms of IT solutions for
manufacturing. These solutions operate on data generated by ERP systems (or reliable legacy
systems) and have built-in real time optimizing capabilities.
Relatively few managers are aware of the conceptual evolution of ERP and SCM solutions.
ERP systems have their roots in the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) systems, which
were first developed in the mid-60s. Ironically, many firms now go in for ERP systems, opting to
implement only the financial module.
The basic working of MRP has not changed over the decades. The idea is to look ahead with a
Master Production Schedule (MPS) for end products, and then work backwards using the bill of
materials (a master database on product composition-how much of what goes into each
component or end-product produced by the company) and a database on lead times
(manufacturing lead times for in-house items and procurement lead times for outsourced items).
The planning unit of time in MRP is called a 'time bucket'. It is usually a week.
The MPS gives production volumes for each end-product (and also for spares) by time bucket:
1. A breakdown is run on each of the items in the MPS. This gives the consumption

67

requirements of components by time bucket, for both in house and outsourced

components.
2. These consumption requirements can be translated into purchase and production
requirements by netting out stock on hand and on order, and adding safety stock. These
requirements are called net requirements.
3. The lead time database is used to calculate when the orders for net requirements have to
be triggered. These orders can be manufacturing or purchase orders.
This procedure is explained in Figure 4.5. The example taken is that of a cycle manufacturer.
The MPS has a weekly schedule for number of cycles of a particular brand and configuration,
coded C10101. Our hypothetical company is planning to make only this configuration in the next
eight weeks. For each cycle, one handle bar assembly (code 110300) and two tyre assemblies (11
0900) are needed. The lead time for assembling one lot of handle bars is two weeks, and the lot
size defined is 1,000. The lead time for tyres is one week, and they can be ordered from the
vendor in lots of 500. The safety stock levels are 500 for handle bars and 1,000 for tyres.
The example in Figure 4.5 presents MRP calculations in the format that is commonly used. At
first glance, the MRP working does not appear to be very revolutionary. However, a number of
factors made the emergence of MRP a key development in manufacturing management:

One of the key features of MRP is that it makes a clear distinction between dependent
and independent demand. In the example given, the demand for cycles is independent,
while the demand for handle bar and tyre assemblies depend on that of cycles. Prior to
MRP, this distinction was not made in inventory theory. Joseph Orlicky was one of the
early proponents of MRP and this distinction is usually attributed to him.
MRP's time-phased, bucket-by-bucket planning provided better visibility to
manufacturing personnel, leading to better control of the manufacturing system.
More importantly, the extensive use of computers for implementing MRP made it
possible to reschedule supplies rapidly in response to unforeseen events.

The MRP systems of the 60s were improved by adding modules for capacity planning. These
modules would generate data on the workloads generated by MRP orders. If capacity bottlenecks
were detected by the planners, the MPS could be changed. These augmented MRP systems were
called closed-loop MRP systems and were a key development of the 70s. In the 80s, closed-loop
MRP systems were further improved by integrating them with financial modules and adding
simulation capabilities. These improved systems were called MRP II systems. The 90s saw the
emergence of ERP systems, which are large-scale systems used to manage the entire information
systems of Organizations.

68

Figure 4.5: Conventional MRP Calculations

An ERP system typically has modules for financial accounting, MRP/CRP, purchasing, human
resources, shop floor control, sales and distribution. It supports customer-oriented material and
information flows, can serve as a template for Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) fact,
one of the factors, which led to the phenomenal growth of ERP,' the popularity of BPR in the
early 90s.
SCM solutions have now taken the process of IT evolution one ahead, by using data generated
from ERP or from legacy systems and using powerful algorithms to optimize key areas in the
demand/supply chain. These areas include demand forecasting, master scheduling, factory
planning sourcing and distribution.
Today, the hype surrounding ERP\SCM has reached a crescendo manufacturing IT solutions
industry has grown dramatically, generating a new tribe of managers and consultants, who speak
a language (e.g. term like cycle counting, schedule nervousness and so on) that seems outlandish
to manufacturing veterans. While we cannot summaries this body of knowledge in our work, it
is important for practitioners to place the developments described in this section in the right
historical context.
Groupware: While ERP systems bridge Organizational gaps by integrating functions divisions
and departments, groupware bridges the spatial and temporal go between people in the
organization. Theoretically, groupware gives simultaneous access to a database to different users
69

across the globe. Thus, there is no delay between an event being recorded in the database and the
information being available across the organization, though in practice, the availability of current
information is constrained by the rate at which the database is 'replicated' at the viewer's end.
A huge advantage of groupware is that it liberates users from the tyranny of fixed database
structures, such as the rows and columns of Relational Database Management Systems
(RDBMS). Though groupware packages have a built-in database structure, they also provide for
use of attachments of any format. These attachments could be text files, word processor
documents, spreadsheets and so on. The downside to this is that groupware packages are not very
suitable for number crunching applications.
The basic functionalities built into most groupware packages are:

Creation and maintenance of databases for the reference of other users-this becomes a
key instrument for sharing information on, say, standard operating procedures. A key
application of this concept is the idea of the virtual team room. Team members from
different departments can use this feature to communicate new developments specific to
their project to each other.
E-mailing.
Automating work flows-even in today's environment, a large amount of work gets done
by pushing papers between individuals. These papers could be leave applications, travel
expense reports, slides for a presentation to a customer or project proposals. Groupware
allows for the mapping of approval processes, so that the paper trail can be replaced by
an electronic one. This makes the process faster and the embedded trace information
helps to identify delays.

The most common groupware package in the market remains Lotus Notes, which was first
heralded in the business press (Kirkpatrick 1994) as the product that was 'fast becoming for
computer networks what Lotus 1-2-3 was for PCs-the early software that changes the way people
view their computers and the way companies work.' Five years later, the Indian business press
has begun to register the emergence of groupware (Chandrasekhar 1999).
E-Business: A recent survey on E-business (The Economist 1999) starts with the words: 'In five
years' time', says Andy Grove, the chairman of Intel, 'all companies will be internet companies,
or they won't be companies at all.' What might the average Indian entrepreneur, who may just
have heard of a few E business start-ups like Rediff-on-the-Net, make of this? Can it really be
true, even in the US, that five years from now there will be no such thing as a company which
isI10t on the internet? As the survey notes, 'The internet is said to be both over-hyped and
undervalued.' In terms of hard numbers, the value of goods (excluding services) traded over the
internet is expected to rise from US$ 43 billion in 1998 to US$ 1,300 billion in 2003. However,
it seems a gross exaggeration to state that companies not actively trading on the net are doomed.
It would probably be more accurate to say that companies that take an early lead in using the
internet to make money (instead of providing cyber-space brochures) will definitely have a huge
advantage.

70

For example, computerized tinting systems have now become a common feature in the
domestics paints market. Now it should be possible for paint companies .or their associates to
carry this innovation a. step forward and accept on-line orders for a complete painting package,
including labour. After all, a customer who places an order at a dealer's shop has only the
manufacturer's assurance that the shade chosen is the one which will appear when the paint dries
on the walls. A visit to a paint dealer does not add to this assurance. In fact, placing the order
directly on the manufacturer has the advantages of eliminating the risk of fakes to the consumer
and reducing overhead costs for the manufacturer. Similarly, music software and hardware
companies could allow potential buyers to sample products and make purchases on-line.
The key feature of internet enabled E-business that makes it different from all the other tools
discussed so far is that it can eliminate the time lapse between creations of active demand and
registering of the demand by the enterprise. While ERP, SCM and groupware may involve
process concepts and help customer focus, E-business takes the enterprise face-to face with the
potential consumer. Aided by the sharp increase in the use of credit cards in India, E-business
can offer massive dividends to companies that focus on exploiting the net to deliver better value
propositions to their customers.
Business Intelligence: Business intelligence solutions are a part of the trend towards using IT to
get meaningful data for executives. Drucker (1995), as usual, has correctly identified the key role
that executives should expect from such solutions. 'For strategy, we need organized information
about the environment. Strategy has to be based on information about markets, customers, and
non-customers, about technology in one's own industry and others, about world-wide finance;
and about the changing world economy. For that is where the results are. Inside an organization,
there are only cost centers. The only profit centre is a customer whose check has not bounced. '
Instead of focusing on increasingly efficient ways of storing data, companies are now moving
towards more effective ways of retrieving and analyzing it. Data warehousing is essentially about
summarizing, transforming and cleaning data so that it can be stored in a specific integrated
format enabling extraction of hidden information. The extraction is done using data mining
techniques ranging from decision trees to neural networks. Data warehousing and mining tools
have been facilitated by the exponential increase in storage and processing power of computers.
Fiore (1999) describes a succesfu1 data warehousing project at Timken, Ohio, which slashed the
lead time for making information available to managers from weeks to minutes.
Interestingly, the growing interest in business intelligence in India has been recorded in the
business press. Kohli (1999) quotes an analyst who estimates that industry spend on these tools
will rise from Rs. 36 crore in 1998 to Rs 100 crore in 1999. The article also reports on a
successful case of business intelligence deployment by a cellular network operator. The operator
had cell phone usage data, payments data and professional profiles of customers in three
different databases. Investing in a data warehouse helped the operator to home in on a key
segment of customers-architects, property dealers and civil engineers-and target a promotion at
them. It is now accepted that such applications will become commonplace and the possibilities
seem endless. For example, durable manufacturers can offer to finance loans at concessiona1
rates of interest to consumers who have a good credit card payment record. The idea is to use IT
to do more than to put two and two together.

71

The developments described in this sub-section can best be viewed as the outcome of the
maturing of the IT industry itself. Two industry comparisons should serve to clarify this:

When cars were first made in the late nineteenth century, each car was typically made to
order for an individual customer by a mechanic who sub-contracted some aggregates to
others. The manufacture of each car was a project. Womack et al. (1990) provide an
immensely interesting account of this system of production. The end-product was not
very reliable, and required a great deal of trouble shooting (' debugging' in today's
terminology) after the customer started using it. As the auto industry matured, it shifted
into mass production mode, delivering reliable, comprehensive and inexpensive
products. This is what has happened in the IT industry. As it continues to evolve, there is
a distinct trend towards reliable, robust and proven software from dedicated companies
and a move away from custom-made one-off software. The ERP/ SCM movement is a
part of this trend.
When power was first used commercially in the 1880s, the mill owners of the day did
not really understand its revolutionary potential. Generators were used to replace steam
engines, but factory layouts and locations did not change. It was 40 years later, when
public utilities stepped in to distribute power on a large scale, that towns distant from
water sources could be industrialized in a big way. Transmission of power became
much easier, it did not have to be transmitted through mechanical arrangements like
rotating shafts. This made factory layouts more efficient. This is again what has
happened in IT -40 years after the development (in 1955) of the first commercial
computer, the UNIVAC, CEOs have begun to use IT to break down functional silos and
eliminate information delays instead of pure number crunching.

The authoritative report of the ESPRIT Consortium (1989) noted that the 'development and
specially the maintenance of computer applications still present major problems, in terms of
overall effort involved, and elapsed time. The reason for this is that applications are essentially
produced in a hand-crafted fashion without any real common standards, methods or tools. A real
industrial approach is needed to replace the craft of application development.' This is the key to
the importance of the solutions discussed in this section.
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4.4 MATERIAL PROCESSING AND HANDLING TOOLS

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4.4.1 Flexible Manufacturing Systems

Transfer lines and Special Purpose Machines (SPMs) based on 'hard' automation components,
like mechanical cams and limit switches, have long been a part of manufacturing. The idea
behind such automation-also called Detroit-type automation after its origin-is that a component
with a large and steady demand over a long period of time is best produced on dedicated lines.
The cost of modifying these lines to make them suitable for other components is prohibitive, but
this is not required because of the longevity of the component. Also, the one-time cost of
designing (or modifying) and debugging the line is easily recovered because of the increase in
throughput and the large volumes. The problem that global industry has faced since the 70s is
that the number of products suitable for hard automation has gradually withered because of
increased competition and drastically shortened product life cycles.

72

Continuous product innovation necessitated the development of manufacturing systems, which

can accommodate manufacturing flexibility in production volumes, product mixes and product
design.
Flexibility of product design is achieved by shortening the 'time to market', from conceiving the
product to launching it in the market. CAE and rapid prototyping are key enabling technologies.
FMSs are technological solutions for flexibility of volume and mix.
The principle of an FMS is that automation is embedded into the software that controls the
system and its components. Changes in component design are accommodated by changing the
software-these changes are achieved much faster than they would be in a hard automated
environment.
Processes can be simulated graphically before actually using them in production, making
debugging easier and cheaper. Manufacturing tasks can be run on the system components
without loading the part to be manufactured.
This gives the manufacturing engineer feedback on whether things are going the way they
should-without risk of damage to the part or to the equipment. FMSs - and their components-are
justified financially on the grounds that the investment made is largely an up front investment.
Though there are maintenance costs (and these costs are higher than they are for hard automation
systems because of the sophisticated equipment used), the incremental cost of changing the
product mix and volume is low. Figure 4.6 shows a typical FMS layout. The building blocks of
the FMS are:

CNC Machines in which the operations performed by mechanical tools on the component
being manufactured are dictated by reprogrammable control units. Accuracy is very high
and a single machine can perform a massive range of operations.
The key advantage, however, is that the time taken to start production from scratch (that
is from the time the design has been frozen) is very short. Using CAE and CAPP, the
required machining programmes (called part programmes) can often be generated
automatically. The programmes can be rapidly tested through simulation and dry runs.

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Figure 4.6: Block Diagram of an FMS

Industrial robots as understood in industrial engineering, very different from the fictional
robots of Star Wars. These robots are jointed structures, which can be manipulated
through control software to perform simple functions like pick and place or spot welding,
depending on the kind of gripper that is attached to the end of the robot arm. In an FMS,
they are typically used for loading and unloading components.
Automated Guided Vehicles are battery-powered and programmable vehicles used to
carry components between machines and storage points. If the system is not very
complex, conveyors can be used instead of AGV s. The advantage of AGV s is that they
provide for flexible routing.
Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs) use a probe operating within a threedimensional coordinate system to measure the geometrical accuracy of components and
thus automate the inspection process.
Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems (AS/RS) are basically flexibly automated
warehouses. An AS/RS is defined by the Material Handling Institute (MHI) as 'a
combination of equipment and controls that handles stores and retrieves materials with
precision, accuracy and speed under a defined degree of automation.' This automation is
aided by the use of pallets and standardized containers.

The problem with FMS' is that there are very few examples of successful implementations
worldwide, though the usage of their component technologies (mainly CNC machines and
robots) has grown at an explosive rate. A successful example of the use of flexible automation is
Motorola's pager manufacturing line described by Pine (1993), which achieved a 'zero set-up
time, hands off, true lot size of one, asynchronous pull, build-to order manufacturing system.'
The pagers could be produced in up to 29 million combinations and the order fulfillment time
was crashed to one and-a-half-hours. Interestingly, Pine notes that some production tasks had to
be left manual even though the goal was to automate everything, 'whether it made sense or not. '

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The 80s were marked by a tremendous hype over 'factories of the future' and 'lights out factories'.
In one of the most infamous cases in manufacturing, General Motors invested billions of dollars
in FMS-type technologies without any substantial return on investment. The problem with such
efforts was that they were driven chiefly by a desire for technological nirvana, without a sound
understanding of manufacturing basics. A common goal was to eliminate human intervention in
the process of working. After the diffusion of lean production methods, executives have realized
that there is no substitute for a motivated shop floor worker, willing to learn and improve work
processes. As Duimering et al. (1993) have argued, it is important to differentiate between
flexible technology and Organizational flexibility. The manufacturing executive's goal must
surely be the latter and not the former. Flexible automation technologies are widely used todayCNC machines are common in low-volume or high-accuracy environments and robots are used
for spot welding-but they are used to augment sound manufacturing processes.

4.4.2 Rapid Prototyping

Rapid prototyping is an emerging technology that promises to radically change product
development. It takes CAD data to actually generate a three dimensional prototype of the
component being designed. This can be achieved in minutes.
In the most commonly used rapid prototyping method, a CAD database is used as an input to
generate wax or nylon slices of the component, layer by layer. A laser works on a fine layer of
powder, first tracing the boundary of the slice and then sintering the powder particles within the
boundary. This process is repeated until a life-size, three-dimensional prototype is complete.
Though prototypes are currently made from a narrow range of materials, such as wax or nylon,
the availability of a 'real' prototype offers huge advantages for the product development team. To
mention a few, the 'manufacturability' of the component can be studied more easily by manufacturing engineers, the component can be checked for proper fit with other parts and feedback
can be generated from the market on aesthetic aspects. The goal of some companies, as reported
in a survey by The Economist (1994), is to move towards free form fabrication (FFF}-a kind of
virtual manufacturing. 'They (free form fabricators) need no factory, no supply chain; just the
raw material, the design and, perhaps, an operator. Some types of product-personalized
porcelain, perhaps-may well goes all the way from design to department store in the world of
information.

4.4.3 Lean Production Tools

Two key lean production shop floor tools are Poka Yoke and SMED. Both of these are attributed
to Shigeo Shingo, the famous Japanese industrial engineering consultant who was instrumental
in setting up the Toyota Production System. We shall briefly discuss these ideas without going
into techniques, which have been more than adequately dealt with by others, including Shingo
himself

4.4.4 Poka Yoke

Poka Yoke devices are 'mistake-proofing' devices aimed at making it possible to achieve zero
defects in production. Shingo had originally termed these devices Baka Yoke, which translates
into 'fool proofing'. He changed the name after a worker was offended by the use of the term
Baka Yoke because it seemed to imply that she was a fool. The philosophy of Poka Yoke is very
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simple. Shingo realized that while human errors are unavoidable, the key to zero defects is to
prevent errors from turning into defects. This can be done if processes are made mistake prooftools are used such that the worker either cannot make a mistake at all, or is immediately informed if a mistake has been made. Of course, all this pre-supposes an Organizational climate in
which workers are not alienated from management objectives.

4.4.5 Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED)

SMED is generally viewed as the key technical breakthrough that enabled the move towards of
pull systems and one-piece flow. Again, we refer the reader to more authoritative sources for a
detailed technical description of SMED (see Chapter 2 for an introduction). What was
revolutionary about SMED, though it may seem commonsensical in retrospect, was Shingo's outof-the-box approach to the much-studied and little-applied theoretical problem of Economic
Order Quantity (EOQ). In the classical EOQ model, the objective is to find a production (or
ordering) lot size at which the total cost of operation in minimized. The two incremental costs
that are involved are set-up costs and inventory carrying costs. The conventional wisdom was
that set-up costs increase as the lot size decreases, because more time is wasted. (and capacity
lost) with each set up. Against this, larger lot sizes imply a larger average inventory and hence a
larger inventory carrying cost. The optimal lot size is one which achieves the best trade-off by
minimizing While researchers in, the West focused on increasingly sophisticated EOQ models,
Shingo decided to attack the concept of set-up costs. This was in keeping with the lean
production philosophy of eliminating waste. Shingo gradually realized that what lead to set-up
costs was simply a lack of focus on eliminating all waste of time in set-up activities. When a setup is necessary on a machine, only a handful of activities actually cause the machine to be
stopped. Shingo referred to these activities as internal setup activities. Most set-up activities (for
example, bringing a jig or a fixture to the machine) are external-they can be performed even
when the machine is running. Shingo prescribed a simple set of procedures for minimizing set-up
time--list set-up activities, segregate them into internal and external, perform external activities
off-line, and most importantly, convert internal activities to external to the extent possible.
Simple but effective methods, like the use of clamps instead of threaded fasteners, were adapted
to crash internal set-up activities. The objective was to complete set-ups in single digit minute
values-less than 10 minutes. He called this set of procedures SMED after this objective.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.5 AN ASSESSMENT OF MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS AND TOOLS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Cohen and Apte (1990) have compared humans and automated machines using the graphic
shown in Figure 4.7
Firstly, as Cohen and Apte argue, it is necessary to distinguish between external parameters like
cost, quality, delivery and flexibility, and the internal parameters considered in Figure 3.7. An
organization builds up competences in these internal parameters to position itself in the market.
The tools discussed so far are essentially enabling technologies, which deliver internal strengths
to the organization. The organization uses these strengths to adopt a competitive stance in the
market.

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Figure 4.7: Human vs. Machine Capabilities

There are two broad lessons to be drawn from this. Firstly, the tools, which are most successful,
are those which act on axes where machines are superior to humans. CNC machines offer a mix
of accuracy, repeatability, speed and flexibility. They have grown at a fast pace because of this
package of competences. FMSs, on the contrary, were intended to provide flexibility which is
actually a human strength-the wild expectations from FMSs have now been watered down .In a
study of 61 fine paper manufacturing industries, Upton (1995) found a negative correlation
between investment in CIM and flexibility.
More importantly, all the internal competences are not equally important. The key differentiators
are obviously judgment and learning. A study of the evolution of the Toyota Production System
shows that it started from a judgment (formed by a scion of the controlling Toyoda family) of the
Ford manufacturing system in the early 50s. What followed then was a process of learning about
markets and methods for eliminating waste from what is now called the supply chain. The
learning was aimed towards delivering competitive advantage on external competences, and it
lead to superior practices, which were embedded into the product design and order fulfillment
processes. It was also diffused across the organization.
A factory, which has become a 'learning laboratory', as noted by Leonard-Barton (1992), is in an
enviable situation. The CEO of the organization, she studied, 'says he can tour competitors
through the plant, show them almost everything, and we will be giving away nothing because
they can't take it home with them.' This probably explains why Toyota did not feel to be
secretive about its superior production management system. Of course, there may have been
pressures to explain that the huge US trade deficit was not because of the protectionist attitude of
the Japanese.
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Figure 4.8: Business vs. Technology Perspective

There was also a spin-off benefit in the sense that the Toyota Production System became a
hallowed subject of study for every student of operations management or industrial engineering.
But what undoubtedly helped Toyota to come out with the philosophy and details of its system
was the realization that serious competitors would take a decade to catch up. In the meantime,
Toyota could race ahead with the strengths that it had built up.
Perhaps, what is more important than the tool or the system is the perspective with which it is
embraced. As shown in Figure 3.8, there are building blocks of a manufacturing ecosystem, and
the application of any tool spans one or more of these building blocks. In the simplest possible
model, shown in the figure, there are three structural building blocks through which materials
flow-suppliers, manufacturing and customers. The perspective refers to the idea behind the
application of the tool, and can be represented by a loop connecting all the blocks affected by it.
Loop 1 shows a horizontal, business-oriented perspective, such as the one used in agile
manufacturing for the deployment of cellular manufacturing. Loop 2 shows a technologyfocused perspective, such as one that could be used to set up a robotic welding line without any
significant increase in flexibility or quality.
This is brings us to the (perhaps clinched by now) bottom line-an ever expanding set of tools and
techniques is available to manufacturing managers. How well these tools are used is a function of
the superiority of the three Ps (Ghosal and Bartlett 1994-95) of purpose, people and processes in
any organization.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

LABOR AND HRD PRACTICES IN WCM

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
5.1 Human Resource Dimensions in WCM
5.2 Morale and Team Work
5.3 High Employee Involvement
5.4 Cross Functional Teams
5.5 Work Study Methods
5.6 Human Integration Management
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANUFACTURING

DIMENSIONS

IN

WORLD

CLASS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The top management in most companies often thinks that the impediments to the implementation
of WCM are primarily technical. Managers believe that they lack the necessary technology to
implement the 'factory of the future'. However, worldwide experience refutes this. While no one
can have a complete World-Class manufacturing system, it is possible to go 80 to 90 per cent of
the way there with the technology available today. Yet, most companies have not been able to go
even 10 per cent of the way and there is plenty of technology left for them to utilize. Time and
time again, it has been shown that the major impediment to the implementation of WCM is
people: their lack of knowledge, their resistance to change, or simply their lack of ability to
quickly absorb the vast multitude of new technologies, philosophies, ideas and practices that
have come about in manufacturing over the last two decades or so. Thus, managing people is a
critical issue in achieving WCM status.
Superior performance is ultimately based on the people in an organisation. The right
management principles, systems and procedures play an essential role, but the capabilities that
create a competitive advantage come from people-their skill, discipline, motivation, ability to
solve problems and capacity to learn. Developing their potential is at the heart of World-Class
manufacturing. Moreover, it allows a manufacturing organisation to differentiate itself in ways
that are extraordinarily difficult for its competitors to copy. Both good news and bad are
associated with this fact: the reason it is so difficult to emulate the human resource management
practices of another company is precisely because such practices are so difficult to change
(Hayes et al. 1998).
Effective management of an organizations human resources requires continuity and consistency
across many decisions and throughout all levels of the organisation. The multiplicity and
pervasiveness of these decisions, and the fact that no single manager can be involved in all of

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them make it extremely difficult to maintain this kind of continuity. It depends much more on
shared values-a common philosophy of the management than on superb analytical techniques.
Although almost all companies create systems and policies to help structure specific kinds of
decisions and actions, they often fail to put in place the philosophy and principles that provide a
clear sense of direction to the people who operate those systems (Hayes et al. 1988).
According to Donald Peterson, when quality was being introduced into Ford; the real
breakthrough occurred at' a meeting when someone suggested that our values could be expressed
with three Ps to make them easy to remember: people, products and profits. The most important
element was the sequence, with people being first (Peterson 1991).
People are remarkably capable and adaptable in supportive environments. Japanese companies,
such as Toyota, are recognizing that there are limits to the extent to which work can be
automated. At Toyota's Kyushu plant, the pendulum is swinging back towards a greater
involvement of people in the production process. In recent years, many companies, large and
small, have developed policies or credos that not only relate to their business objectives but also
take account of the company's responsibilities to its employees, neighbors and the community.
These aspects of industrial life need to be reflected in the company's performance measurement
system (Maskell 1991).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.2 MORALE AND TEAMWORK

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The truth is that it is the people who make a company successful. A firm can have a wonderful
product, excellent financial structure and superior market plans, but only the effective
recruitment and management of the people working for it brings success. In fact, Infosys is the
first company in India to acknowledge human capital as an asset on their balance sheet. WorldClass manufacturers realize that employees need to be led and managed differently, if the
company is to succeed on the World market. The overall objective is to build a team-a WorldClass team. Such a team is committed to making the company successful; it is not satisfied with
the minor achievements, but is working towards the radical improvements required to bring a
traditional company into a World-Class status. To measure intangible issues like morale is
always difficult and yet, the way people feel about their work, their managers and their
colleagues is most vital to the performance of a company. A number of programmes have been
developed to attempt to measures and feelings and attitude of working people within their
organisation

A. People Involvement
World-Class manufacturers put great stress on teamwork and involvement of their people in
broader area than their immediate job responsibilities. The ideal employee within a World-Class
manufacturing environment is:

Willing to take on responsibility for the quality of his or her work with out additional
inspection being required.
Working cooperatively and apply idea of continuous improvement.
Multi-skilling for different functions.

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There are simple objective measures that can be used to gauge the level of involvement
throughout the company. These include:

Quality circle participation

Number of suggestions per employee
Number of suggestions put into practice
Number of training days per employee
Number of skills per person.

B. Work Environment Measures

There have been many attempts in recent years to establish more objective views of the way that
people feel about their work and their colleagues. One such attempt was made by Dr .Rudoy H.
Moos of Stanford University to measure the work environment on 10 major aspects, e.g.
involvement, peer cohesion, supervisor support, autonomy, task orientation, work pressure,
clarity, control, innovation and physical comfort. A clear difference between the real and the
expectations measures signal areas of concern that need to be analyzed and improved.

C. Environment and Safety

It is important for World-Class manufacturers to have a comprehensive assessment of

environmental assessment besides regulatory agencies enforcing environmental and safety laws.
Environmental compliance can be measured by the number of deviations to the standard.
Similarly, it is essential to measure safety in the plant. Some of the measures widely used are:

Days lost through accidents

Number of days since the last accident
Number of accidents or near-accidents reported
Safety index (number of audit failures/number of audit observations).

Techniques like statistical process control, Pareto analysis, and fishbone diagrams are very useful
in the quest for continuous improvement in the area of environment and safety.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.3 HIGH EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Employee involvement, teams, and employee empowerment enable people to make decisions
about their work. This employee involvement, teambuilding approach, and employee
empowerment increases loyalty and fosters ownership. These links tell you how to do team
building and effectively involve people. Employee involvement is creating an environment in
which people have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. Employee
involvement is not the goal nor is it a tool, as practiced in many organizations. Rather, employee
involvement is a management and leadership philosophy about how people are most enabled to
contribute to continuous improvement and the ongoing success of their work organization.
Employee involvement is the true energy that drives the successful continuous improvement
processes which is the ultimate goal in any quality management system.

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Outcome of high level employee involvement includes:

Lower absenteeism;
Enhance work attitudes;
Higher individual work performance;
Lower employee turnover and increase return on equity;
Improved organizational learning culture

Employee Involvement Programs (EIPs):

Job participation, consisting of permanent programs in which employees take a formal,

direct role in decisions relating to job issues;
Consultative participation, including long-term interventions like quality circles and
employee suggestion schemes, in which employees' opinions are sought as managers
engage in decision-making;
Representative participation, in which employees elect councils or board members to
represent their interests to management;
Downward communication, through newsletters and team briefings; and various forms
of financial participation via gain-sharing, profit-sharing and employee-ownership
schemes.

Dimensions of Employee Involvement:

Power (P): to act and make decisions about work in all its aspects;
Information (I): information about processes, quality, customer feedback, event and
business results;
Rewards (R): tied to business results and growth in capability and contribution;
Training (T): knowledge of the work, the business, and the total work system acquired
through systematic training process.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.4 CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A Cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working
toward a common goal. It may include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human
resources departments. Typically, it includes employees from all levels of an organization.
Members may also come from outside an organization (in particular, from suppliers, key
customers, or consultants).
Cross-functional teams often function as self-directed teams responding to broad, but not specific
directives. Decision-making within a team may depend on consensus, but often is led by a
manager/coach/team leader.
A non-business, yet good example of cross-functional teams are music bands, where each
element plays a different instrument (or has a different role). Songs are the result of collaboration
and participation, and the goals are decided by consensus. Skills to play all the instruments

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involved are not required since music provides a standard language that everybody in the team
can understand. In short, music bands are clear examples of how these teams work. The Movie
maker is the best example to show the relation between the team members from different
experiences, The director actually is the team leader but if he said action and at the same time the
sound manager found some distortion or noise or any thing which he is not convinced within his
job he can take the decision to stop until this problem is solved, So In every expert is the leader
or the manager of the whole operation when there is a problem related to his specialty.
Organizational consequences of cross-functional teams: The growth of self-directed crossfunctional teams has influenced decision-making processes and organizational structures.
Although management theory likes to propound that every type of organizational structure needs
to make strategic, tactical, and operational decisions, new procedures have started to emerge that
work best with teams.

Less unidirectional: p until recently, decision making flowed in one direction. Overall
corporate-level objectives drove strategic business unit (SBU) objectives, and these in
turn, drove functional level objectives. Today, organizations have flatter structures,
companies diversify less, and functional departments have started to become less welldefined. The rise of self-directed teams reflects these trends. Intra-team dynamics tend to
become multi-directional rather than hierarchical. Interactive processes encourage
consensus within teams. Also the directives given to the team tend to become more
general and less prescribed.
Greater scope of information: Cross functional teams require a wide range of
information to reach their decisions. They need to draw on information from all parts of
an organizations information base. This includes information from all functional
departments. System integration becomes important because it makes all information
accessible through a single interface.
Greater depth of information: Cross Functional team require information from all
levels of management. The teams may have their origins in the perceived need to make
primarily strategic decisions, tactical decisions, or operational decisions, but they will
require all three types of information. Almost all self-directed teams will need
information traditionally used in strategic, tactical, and operational decisions. For
example, new product development traditionally ranks as a tactical procedure. It gets
strategic direction from top management, and uses operational departments like
engineering and marketing to perform its task. But a new product development team
would consist of people from the operational departments and often someone from top
management. In many cases, the team would make unstructured strategic decisions -such as what markets to compete in, what new production technologies to invest in, and
what return on investment to require; tactical decisions like whether to build a prototype,
whether to concept-test, whether to test-market, and how much to produce; and structured
operational decisions like production scheduling, inventory purchases, and media
fighting. In other cases, the team would confine itself to tactical and operational
decisions. In either case it would need information associated with all three levels.
Greater range of users: Cross-functional teams consist of people from many parts of an
organization. Information must take a form that all users understand. Not only engineers
use technical data and not only accountants use financial data and not only human

83

resources personnel use HR data. Modern organizations lack middle managers to

combine, sort, and prioritize the data. Technical, financial, marketing, and all other types
of information must come in a form that all members of a cross-functional team can
understand. This involves reducing the amount of specialized jargon, sorting information
based on importance, hiding complex statistical procedures from the users, giving
interpretations of results, and providing clear explanations of difficult concepts. Slicing
and dicing techniques may prove useful in providing different views of the information to
different users. Data visualization systems can present complex results in an intuitive
manner.
Less teleological: Since the publication of Peter Druckers views on "Management by
Objectives", business decision-making has become more goal-oriented. Managers have
come to view decision-making generally, and strategic thinking in particular, as a multistage process that starts with an assessment of the current situation, determines
objectives, then determines how to reach these objectives. Management by objectives
took this basic scheme and applied it to virtually all significant decisions. Today many
firms have started to opt for a less structured, more interactive approach. One way of
implementing this involves using self-directed cross-functional teams. Proponents hope
that these teams will develop strategies that will re-define industries and create new best
practices. They feel that mere incremental improvements do not suffice. Crossfunctional teams, using unstructured techniques and searching for revolutionary
competitive advantages, allegedly require information systems featuring increased
interactivity, more flexibility, and the capability of dealing with fuzzy logic. Artificial
intelligence holds out the promise of one day proving useful in this regard. Teams consist
of members with variable levels of skills and experiences brought together to reach the
objectives.

Why Cross-functional Teams?

To face today's complex challenges, you need to incorporate a wide range of styles, skills, and
perspectives. Cross-functional teams are regarded as a means to manage social collaboration and
concept creation. Some examples of cross-functional teams are teams established to:
Design and develop new products;
Choose and implement new technologies throughout organization;
To improve the service-profit chain, and
To control product costs.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.5 WORK STUDY METHODS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Work Study is the systematic examination of the methods of carrying on activities so as to
improve the effective use of resources and to set up standards of performance for the activities
being carried out.

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Work Study consists of Two Parts:

Method Study: To find the best method of operation, making full use of all resources
available.
Work Measurement: To find the time required to carry out the operation at a defined
level of activity.

These two, in common usage, are taken to mean Work Study. Here an equally important part has
been added

Using Work Study Data: For purposes of control, costing, estimating, planning and
payment schemes.

Work Study is worth nothing unless active use is made of the data it produces. It replaces
guesswork and opinion, by facts. These facts being obtained by careful observation using a
trained Work Study Engineer working with you and your staff.
Managing people within operations involves actual design decisions about jobs, methods,
relationships between jobs and machines and systems of control and communication. Work
design involves complex "people" relationships between operative staff, supervisors and
specialists e.g. engineering managers and staff who commission new machines and maintain
them. Other specialists may co-ordinate health and safety systems or monitor performance and
plan maintenance

85

People are not mere extensions to machines or horsepower to be switched on and off. A worker's
performance may be better than a machine's capability - yet a machine may outstrip the human
being for many tasks.
People can be hurt/injured physically by operating environments or trapped socially and
psychologically in them/by them. How operational systems are designed and the jobs and
performance relationships within them are of great operational, economic and social importance.
In this context then work study is
A collection of techniques used to examine work - what is done and how it is done - so that
there is systematic analysis of all the elements, factors, resources and relationships affecting
the efficiency and effectiveness of the work being studied.
Considerable diplomacy and sensitivity is needed by the industrial engineer or operations
manager who becomes involved in work study (or business process improvement) investigations.
In the Path of F. W. Taylor: Method study and work measurement are two principal activities
of work study which originated in the work of F. W. Taylor. FW's "scientific management"
imperatives are:
Investigate the work situation and identify weaknesses - where and why is poor performance
happening? The "scientific" title for this approach to management means placing emphasis on:

Data gathering and rational analysis;

Certain narrow assumptions about the objectivity of efficiency criteria;
The existence of direct, deterministic relationships between worker performance and
incentive payments; and
Consideration of the worker to some extent as a machine. Thus we can evaluate and
introduce improvements in operating methods. This includes type of equipment, its use,
layout of operations, supply and use of materials, materials handling, work organization,
effectiveness of planning procedures and so on.

Productivity improvement is the aim. We can select staff with characteristics that fit the job, train
and reward them using payment schemes the offer particular economic incentive by linking
payment to measured performance. Such propositions are commonly the stuff of managerial
populists and "how-to" texts on human resource management.
Methods Study: It is an analysis of ways of doing work. The memonic SREDIM (a commonsense heuristic or general problem-solving strategy) represents the method study stages
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Select the tasks to study

Record the facts about it
Examine these
Develop a new method
Install/implement it

86

Maintain it Work Measurement: It involves assessing the time a job should take to do. Similar
steps are involved as to method study:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Select the tasks;

Record the facts;
Analyse them;
Calculate basic and standard times for the task;
Agree the method and its related time.

In the 1950's and 1960's the work study officer or O&M Person (organization and methods)
gathered the data and gave advice. In the 1970's the titles evolved e.g. to that of management
services officer. Work-study and methods study came within the scope of the industrial engineer.
Today the techniques of method study are inclusive within the tool-kits and applications of the
business systems analyst. The most modern application of some of the techniques of work study
is the early 1990's managerial recipe; "business process re-engineering" i.e. re-designing
business processes which have developed to the extent that they mismatch the needs of the
situation today.
However -- having said this - the scope for work study definition and evaluation is useful for
operations managers in a general sense. Such roles require data on operational capacities and
effectiveness and the use of time and resources. Methods need regular re-evaluation. Some may
have evolved and changed over time to become disjointed, patch works that no longer fully serve
requirements. The case may need to be put for more staff or new methods and equipment. Such
arguments call for data and measurement.
How many extra hours/people are needed? Why? What will the new method offer? Is it
possible to change methods? What will be the costs/benefits?
Thus the techniques, assumptions and weaknesses of work study reflect important know-how for
the operations manager generally - and not just those working in engineering or manufacturing
environments. However the assumptions, difficulties and limitations of the claims must be
understood.
Efficiency Indices: Using data on measured work, unmeasured work and idle time we can
attempt to derive effectiveness indices. Constable and New exemplify efficiency and
effectiveness indices:
a. Efficiency: While performing measured work (ratio of standard/measured hours of work
produced and the actual time taken).
b. Effectiveness: Which includes
Accounting for work done for which no measured time exists. Such work is
typically paid for by an agreed hourly/day rate i.e. there is no direct, measured
relationship between pay and how much work is actually completed in that hour. Of
course a supervisor may pass a judgment or state that the amount of work and its
quality are inadequate.

87

Recognition of possible idle time caused e.g. by management not allocating any
work, supplier/materials delays, machine breakdowns etc.

Conclusion: In simple terms work study measures work and defines (some) performance
standards. There are many uses for time estimates for tasks. Operations managers can guess or
assume that a job is done in the correct time (whatever that is!) or they can be systematic and use
time data gathered by a systematic technique which has reasonable accuracy. Whether or not the
worker likes it - pushed hard in trying to complete a job with very tight measured work standards
which don't anticipate the knotty problem encountered with a particular task - is another matter.
Work study/industrial engineers need time data to plan and evaluate production/transformation
processes. Rewards systems need such data for performance related bonuses. Cost calculations
need to incorporate operative and machine job times Costing systems reference work study data.
Work study data contributes to:

Improved methods to raise output, quality, reduce wastage, enhance reliability and ensure
safety.
Standard time data contributes to capacity planning, scheduling, and control of staff, asset
utilization and quality improvement. Service and after-sales method improvements may
be obtained as well as process improvement and better raw materials usage.
Implementation planning for product/service and process design requires a detailed
understanding of methods and timings. In a distribution/transport system we can evaluate
logistical efficiencies.

We need to remember always that performance inefficiency may arise from many reasons
outside of worker control - a cumbersome planning system, a slow computer system with heavy
overheads, lack of investment or uninformed, disorganized management. It is crass to assume
that the problems will only be due to staff inefficiencies or inappropriate methods.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.6 HUMAN INTEGRATION MANAGEMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------If one studies Human Resources, one will notice that the field seems to be missing architects
people who are able to connect the dots and integrate the variety of HR sub disciplines and
instruments which are available. In many organizations the way HR is operating today still
resembles what people were doing around 1990, when the word Human Resources
Management started to replace the term Personnel Management. For instance, HR is the only
part of business which has escaped the business process re-engineering movement of the
1990s. Even in the Internet Age, one notices that after the e- learning and e-recruiting hype,
many companies are mainly still operating in the same ways as before the Internet, and only
using the Net as a way to deliver the same messages as they delivered before.
Things can be different. For example, IBM centralized its global recruiting, and manages most of
it from one location in the U.K. (and fired most of the local staff in HR). The result was that one
recruiter can now hire 90 persons a year versus a sector average of 36 in 2000. Another
company, BP, decided to outsource most of its HR systems. In some companies, the demand for

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Return on Investment (ROI) and productivity (less HR staff doing more work) are now getting
louder and louder.
The Integral Four Quadrant Approach: One of the major contributions of Ken Wilber, an
contemporary American philosopher, is his approach to think at a level of abstraction at which
various conflicting approaches actually agree with one another. Then Wilber poses the question:
What coherent system would in fact incorporate the greatest number of these truths?2 In this
paper, we have attempted something similar for several approaches to HRM and psychology,
grouping the m in the four quadrants Wilber typically used for organizing seemingly conflicting
theories. Indeed Wilber (1997) introduces the Integral Vision by pointing out that some views of
reality start with objective, and often quantifiable observables. This is called the external view
(pictured as the quadrants at the right side of figure below).
At the other side we have approaches that start from introspection and interpretation, looking at
consciousness and at the direct experience that each of us has. These are called the internal
approaches (or the left side quadrants). Both sides of the spectrum are then divided in individual
approaches, where one is looking at the parts (the Upper half of the drawing) and collective
approaches, where one is looking at the whole (the lower half of the figure).

Figure 5.1: An Integral Approach to Human Resources

Lower Right: Systems Thinking: Until the beginning of the 1990s, one could safely say that
the lower right quadrant was often overlooked when implementing new programs in
organizations. But even more than 10 years after the hype of business process reengineering and
the learning organization, there is still something to learn for HRM. Symptoms of a lack of a
systemic view are for instance that different HR programs do not take each other into account,
leading to incredible situations where the training and development department in charge of
training for the organizations High- Potentials organizes training without even being aware what
the companys competence model for high-potentials is.
Connecting all the dots will greatly enhance the effectiveness of an HRM effort. For instance, if
an organization decides to set up a mentoring or coaching program, its recommended to brief
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mentors or coaches on the competence models the company is using for the target audience of
these programs. Similarly, mentors and coaches should be helping the person they are working
with to integrate this mentoring and coaching into their personal development plans, and
hopefully the organization is planning to let the persons put their new competencies into practice,
and this will be reflected at the next appraisal or when the employees get promoted. The chart
below (Figure 5.2), using job EQs formula for success, illustrates how all the dots need to be
connected:
Upper Right: The Scientific View: Much of business is looked at from the external side,
including people. From this perspective, one is only interested in the observable behavior of
people. Much of what is called competencies in HRM is based on this looking at what is
observable. It is clear that competence management is an important building block of an
integrated HR approach. This can happen in two ways: First, as Hamel & Prahalad (1994) argue,
an organization should determine which are its core competencies related to its strategic position,
thus building competitive advantage. Secondly, an organization should determine which are the
important competencies for each position in the organization, of course taking into account the
core competencies. The resulting competence models become the standard to be used for many
HR practices, such as assessment, recruitment, promotion, training, coaching, and evaluating
people. In other words, when competence management is consistently applied throughout the
organization, it offers a way to connect the dots.

Figure 5.2: System Thinking

The mistake that is sometimes made by people designing competence models is reducing other
elements such as the persons motivational characteristics to these competencies. In such a
reductionistic model, being proactive, goal-oriented, or having attention for detail will be
seen as competencies. The limitations of this approach become clearly visible when one sets
loose statistical factoring techniques on most competency-based questionnaires. In fact, using
these techniques, most of these questionnaires will show very high correlations and tend to be
reduced to one factor only. This is clearly the result of a modeling error, since motivational
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characteristics measured by a well-designed work attitude and motivation questionnaire prove to

have pretty low correlations between the different attitude elements. In other words, using an
upper right method to predict upper left attitude characteristics is bound to fail.
Upper Left: Individual Consideration: While the implementation of a coaching or mentoring
program in an organization includes a systemic component, doing a particular coaching and
mentoring intervention starts from individual consideration. Instead of generalizing behavior, our
starting point is that each person may react differently when confronted with the same event in
the same context. Suppose for instance that you get a compliment from a customer about your
work. Some people will feel happy about it. Others may doubt whether this comment is really
meant, and get mixed feelings, given that they feel the compliment overstates what they have
delivered. Others might even react that the comment is not needed and might be wondering:
What does this person want from me?
The kind of response, both emotionally and in terms of external behavior, will depend on how
this person filters reality. Is this the kind of person having a strong external reference? In that
case, the likelihood of accepting the compliment and feeling good because of it is greater. Does a
person have a strong internal reference? In that case, the person is more likely to evaluate the
compliments by their own criteria and how they feel will depend more on their own evaluation.

Figure 5.3: How do People get connected?

Lower Left: Culture - Apart from figuring out the competence model and taking into account
individual characteristics such as work attitude and motivation, one also needs to consider the
organizational culture. Approaches which will work in one organization may fail in another one.
For instance, a study for the Dutch police force in 2003 showed the unwanted side effects of
replacing the internal management training program by sending officers to the Dutch business
schools where they enrolled in the standard MBA programs. Many of the officers complained
that the managerial techniques learned in business school were difficult to apply in the police
force. The main problem was that the cultural model underlying the business training is not
compatible with the culture of the police force. In other words, when examining the HR systems
and tools of an organization, one needs to have a way to map out the organizational culture.
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Integral Thinking - In a nutshell, an integral HR Management aligns all HR tools with the
culture and the strategy of the organization, taking into account the individuals motivational
characteristics. The advantage is that HRM will become more efficient and effective,
contributing to the whole of the organization. This can be achieved through examining which
competencies, attitudes and value systems are needed for various functions within the
organization, and adapting the HR systems and tools to these requirements.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

COMPETITIVE INDIAN MANUFACTURING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
6.1 Competitiveness of Indian Manufacturing
6.2 Manufacturing Performance and Planned Strategies of Indian Manufacturing Firms
6.3 Survey on World-Class Manufacturing Readiness of Indian Firms
6.4 Manufacturing Objectives and Strategy
6.5 Usage of Management Tools and Technologies
6.6 Manufacturing Management Practices
6.7 IT Infrastructure and Practices
6.8 The Manufacturing Strategic Intent Framework
6.9 Strategic Use of IT in Indian Manufacturing
6.10 Classification by Breadth of IT Infrastructure and Depth of Manufacturing Applications
6.11 Classification by Breadth and Integration of IT Infrastructure
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------6.1 COMPETITIVENESS OF INDIAN MANUFACTURING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------India is undertaking path-breaking reforms in its industrial sector. Its manufacturing sector
registered a growth rate of 8 per cent per annum during the 1980s. This was considered to be
very respectable, considering the statistically significant decline the sector had been registering
since the mid1960s. One of the reasons for this may be attributed to the liberalization process
initiated by the Government of India in the early 1990s, one of the major objectives of which was
to raise the growth performance of the industrial sector by removing various constraints,
especially the requirement of an industrial license (Mani and Bhaskar 1998). However, on the
global competitiveness level, India had an overall ranking 45 out of 53 countries in 1997, which
slipped to 50 in 1998 (Sharma et al. 1999). The basic question arises is how competitive are
Indian manufacturing firms? Today's competitive environment is very different when compared
to the past. The Indian manufacturing firms are facing competition from imports as well as from
multinational companies (MNCs) in the domestic markets. Earlier, these firms segregated these
two markets and served them with different quality products and services, compromising on
quality in the domestic market. This is no longer possible. Therefore, many strategies that may
have worked in the past are not likely to succeed now.

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At present, the competition is in terms of reduced cost, improved quality, high performance
products, a wider product range and better service-all delivered simultaneously. Traditionally,
Indian firms have followed an opportunistic approach to growth as opposed to a competencebased approach that seeks to strengthen key aspects of manufacturing. Consequently, these firms
paid little attention to their factory floors. Of course, there have been some exceptions to this and
some firms had indeed built up their capabilities. Firms are also paying more attention to quality,
but little to faster throughput and delivery, wider product range and better service? There is no
evidence to suggest that enough progress is taking place in this direction. Perhaps, firms are
struggling to improve 'quality' first and expect to take care of other issues later.
Furthermore, the Indian market is also witnessing a quiet revolution where old products are
being substituted by better ones. For the first time perhaps, products and services are being
introduced to meet in customer needs, a practice not discernible earlier. The trend of rapid
introduction of new products is forcing manufacturing firms to profitably produce a larger
variety in smaller volumes! Consequently, these firms have to search for new processes,
materials, vendors, factory layouts, techniques for reducing cycle times, designs, channels, etc.,
to deliver these products. Moreover, manufacturing firms are also being asked to integrate
services with products to meet customer needs. Thus, the real challenge facing Indian
manufacturing is to improve substantially on several dimensions--quality, technology, Shop floor
practices supply chain coordination, and timeto-market-simultaneously and over a short period
of time. In. short, Indian manufacturing is under pressure to demonstrate manufacturing
excellence, and to progress faster on the road to World-Class manufacturing for sustained
profitability and growth
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.2 MANUFACTURING PERFORMANCE AND PLANNED STRATEGIES

OF INDIAN MANUFACTURING FIRMS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Aspiring to become a World-Class manufacturing (WCM) organisation is a common aim of
many manufacturers. However, recent research by authors, such as, Hanson et al. (1994) and
Schonbergers (1996), reveals that few manufacturers are achieving this status and many are
failing to even start the race to improving their manufacturing practices and performance. For
some manufacturers, this may be due to inertia or, more seriously, it may be due to lack of
relevance and advice available on the means and the steps required to attain WCM status.
Chandra and Sastry (1998) conducted a survey of the top executives of 56 manufacturing firms
using the manufacturing futures survey questionnaire (Miller et al. 1992) to assess the strategies
being planned by Indian manufacturing firms to improve their competitiveness and the extent of
performance improvements that have taken place. Today, Indian firms are facing a very different
competitive scenario as compared to the past. They are facing competition from imports and
MNCs in the domestic market. Several firms also have to compete with new entrants in global
markets. The new competition is in terms of World-Class quality products, with higher
performance, reduced cost and a wide range of products, all delivered simultaneously.
It appears that the manufacturing strategy of most firms is focused on improving product and
process quality, after-sales service and on delivering products on-time. However, firms are
currently giving low priority to improvements that require fundamental changes in
manufacturing-changing processes, capability to rapidly change product mix, new process and

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product developments, etc.

In terms of manufacturing performance, the survey revealed that over the last two years, there
has been a marked improvement in the performance of firms on a variety of factors, such as
productivity, reduction in customer returns, improvement in first-pass yields and in the overall
perception of quality by customers. Other performance indicators that have improved are on-time
delivery, shop floor response to design changes and reduction in manufacturing cycle times. The
real challenge for Indian companies, therefore, is to improve manufacturing processes, quality
and technology for excellence.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.3 SURVEY ON WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING READINESS OF

INDIAN FIRMS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------While the Chandra and Sastry survey focused on manufacturing strategies and performance
improvements, Sahay et al. (1997) conducted a survey of 83 manufacturing firms assess their
World-Class manufacturing readiness (WCMR) of Indian firms. Whereas there are several
dimensions to WCM status (as described in Chapter 2), the focus in this survey was on assessing
WCM readiness in terms of three attributes: the manufacturing intent, manufacturing practices
and the supporting IT infrastructure. The reason for the choice of these three attributes is based
on the simple logic that WCM readiness depends on what the firms want to do--their 'intent',
what they are doing-their 'practices', and what they are capable of doing-their 'infrastructure'.
A comprehensive questionnaire was designed for identifying the contingency task structure, the
manufacturers' expectation from IT based systems, and the extent of usage, problems
encountered and ways of organising systems deployment efforts. The survey questionnaire was
designed keeping in view the available previous questionnaires and in consultation with
practicing managers (Chug, et al. 1993; Sahay et al. 1996) and was validated with a sample
survey. In addition to the questionnaire survey, personal visits to companies were made to get
first-hand information. Survey data was analyzed to get a snapshot view of IT.
Out of the 982 questionnaires mailed to chief executives/managing directors, 83 responses were
received on time, out of which 78 were found usable. The remaining 5 responses were
incomplete and, therefore, not considered. Twenty-one responses were received after the
deadline set, and were, therefore, not considered. This resulted in a response rate of 8 per cent,
which is considered adequate for this type of survey in India. The responding companies had a
total turnover of Rs. 90,551 crore in the financial year 1995-96. The questionnaires were mainly
filled out by vice-presidents and general managers/deputy general managers (70.5 per cent).
However, it is interesting to note that about 9 per cent of the chief executive officers (CEOs) also
filled in the questionnaires. This finding seems to be in contrast to the popular belief that Top
management focuses mainly on strategic business issues rather than manufacturing mainly on
strategic business issues rather than manufacturing.
Profile of Responding Companies: The distribution of responding companies in terms of
region, industry and size shows that a wide spectrum of industrial activity was covered (Table
6.1). The respondents can, therefore, be viewed as a representative sample of the Indian
manufacturing industry. In terms of regional distribution, the respondents were evenly divided

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among the four regions, except the East (12 per cent) (Figure 6.1). This might be because the
eastern region has fewer states and relatively less industry concentration.
Table 6.1: Regional Distribution of Respondents
Region
East
North
South
West

States Included
West Bengal, Bihar, Orissa
Punjab, Haryana,' Himachal
Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh
Tamil Nadu, Karnataka,
Kerala, Andhra Pradesh
Maharashtra, Gujarat,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh,
Goa

% Response
12
32
27
29

The responses were markedly better from public limited companies, which constituted nearly
three-fourths (77 per cent) of the total sample, followed ~by private limited (13 per cent) and
public sector (10 per cent) organisations.

Figure 6.1: Region wise Distribution of Responding Companies

Of the 90 per cent responses from private and public limited companies, 17 per cent responses
were received from multinational companies (MNCs) (Figure 6.2). The responding companies
were distributed over a large number of industries, including steel, engineering, automobile,
petroleum, electronics, fertilizers, cement, chemicals, telecommunications, textiles, consumers,
agro-industry, pharmaceuticals and others. Engineering and automobiles were the biggest
segment (24.3 per cent and 23.1 per cent) respectively. The combined turnover of the responding
companies is Rs 90,551 crore and their industry-wise distribution is shown in Figure 6.3.

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Figure 6.2: Classification by Ownership

Figure 6.3: Industry-wise Distribution

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.4 MANUFACTURING OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Manufacturing strategy is concerned with setting broad policies and plans for using the
production resources of the firm to best support its long-term business strategy (Skinner 1985).
Respondents to the survey were asked to rate the strategic objectives of manufacturing listed in
the questionnaire on a five-point scale, with a score of 1 indicating 'not important' and a score of
5 indicating 'very important'. Quality, delivery, inventory reduction and capacity utilization were
identified as the important objectives by the participants. Manufacturing lead-time reduction and
linking manufacturing and corporate strategy were considered slightly less important (Figure
6.4).
Volume, mix .and design flexibility (necessary for faster product development) should be
considered important objectives in a competitive environment. Instead, flexibility was considered
relatively less important by the participants. In contrast, according to the International
Manufacturing Futures Survey (Miller et al. 1992), linking manufacturing

Figure 6.4: Manufacturing Objectives in Indian Industry

(Mean scores on a five-point scale)
strategy to business strategy was the top priority in Western countries while faster product
development was top priority in Japan in the early 90s.
Again, the high rating given to capacity utilisation should be a cause of worry for Indian
managers with a global mindset. Under the concept of World. Class manufacturing, capacity

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utilization is viewed as a function of the current demand of companys products and not as a
strategic objective.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.5 USAGE OF MANAGEMENT TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A number of manufacturing management tools, such as CIM, CAD, CAM, benchmarking, etc.,
are being used internationally. Respondents were asked to rate these tools on a five-point scale in
terms of their perceived usability, according to the following scores.
Score
1
2
3
4
5

Significance
Not aware of this
Not being considered being considered
In use for up to 1 year
In use for more than 1 year
In use for more than 1 year

The one tool which made it well past the threshold mean score 3 was Total Quality Management
(TQM) closely followed by Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) (Figure 6.5). Interestingly,
Indian managers seemed to be very hesitant to admit that they were not aware of some tools.
Very few managers ticked I against any tool.

Figure 6.5: Usage of Management Tools and Techniques

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.6

MANUFACTURING MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The set of manufacturing management tasks listed in the Figure 6.6 was evaluated with respect
to:
Importance to top management in the short-term
Importance to top management in the long-term
Perceived usefulness of computers for the task
Again, five-point scales were used for rating importance and usefulness. A score of I indicated
'not important' or 'not useful', while a score of 5 indicated 'very important' or 'very useful'. The
results should be interesting for IT managers who want to priorities their spending due to
resource constraints. An interesting finding was that the following tasks have scores of more than
4 on all three criteria:

Working capital management

Quality assurance
Production planning
Materials planning
Purchasing
Production
Finished goods distribution

Product design is one task in which the strategic use of IT has had a major impact globally (e.g.
in the case of Boeing). In India, this task is not viewed as important because very few companies
have indigenous product development capabilities (Figure 6.7). 51 per cent of the respondents
said that less than 25 percent of their product range was designed in-house. Only 8 per cent of
the companies went for in-house design for 51 to 75 per cent of their product range. More than
one-fourth of respondents stated that no effort was being made to boost interaction between their
design department and production engineering. This might indicate a poor practice of design for
manufacturability (i.e. designing products that can be manufactured more easily).
Indian production planners seem to bear the brunt of the dictum that a forecast is always wrong!
The consensus seems to be that varying sales forecasts 'frequently' make it difficult to make
feasible plans (Figure 6.8). Some respondents said that this happened 'very often', and there are
also cases where it happened 'almost always'. The problems of forecasting were probably
compounded by the longer manufacturing cycle times, which make it necessary to forecast for
longer time horizons. The other factors that are commonly perceived as causes for concern for
production planners-invalid standards (e.g. BOMs) and inventory data-were not viewed as
serious problems.
The biggest obstacles in achieving production targets were lack of timely supplies of materials
from vendors and absenteeism (Figure 6.9). The other factors-equipment breakdowns and power
cuts-were lesser problems. Power cuts were external variables, which can only be controlled
through captive power generation facilities. The problems with supplies reflect on Indian
industry's weakness in purchasing management. Less than half of the responding companies

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(about 40 per cent) had automated shop scheduling and loading systems. Such systems, whether
in-house or purchased, can greatly increase productivity and effectiveness on the shop floor.

Figure 6.6: Importance of Management Tasks and the Perceived Usefulness of IT for them

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Figure 6.7: Percentage of Product Range Designed in House

Figure 6.8: Factor Creating Problems for Production Planning

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Figure 6.9: Factors Preventing Achievement of Production Plan

Figure 6.10 shows the number of companies that used various planning mechanisms. Many
companies reported that they use Material Requirements Planning (MRP) in conjunction with
shortage lists. This implies that the use of MRP had not been completely effective because MRP
use should ideally eliminate the need for shortage lists. We also found that many managers called
their material planning process MRP even if it was not the standard MRP procedure. In
summary, MRP was found to be the most common planning mechanism but shortage lists
continued to be used, while pull systems were at an early stage of use.
The inventory figures shown in Figures 6.11, 6.12 and 6.13* are representative averages for the
respondents. High capital costs not withstanding, Indian industry continues to operate in highinventory mode. Though more than 15 companies had achieved more than 100 finished goods inventory turns per year, many of them were dedicated ancillary units or companies that produced
heavy equipment to order. Most of the respondents carried more than three days of finished
goods inventory, more than one week of WIP inventory and more than two weeks of raw
material inventory. Many respondents did not have figures available on their WIP inventory. The
pipeline inventory level varied across industries and respondents. It also depended on the size of
the market serviced.
Most of the respondents (83 per cent) stated that their staff helped vendors to improve their
processes. Similarly, formal vendor rating systems were used by four-fifths of the respondents
whereas only one-fifth replied in affirmative that components/materials were supplied directly to
the shop floor without any incoming inspection.

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*The horizontal axes in Figures 6.11 to 6.20 and 6.22 to 6.26 show the number of responding
companies.

Figure 6.10: Basic Production and material Planning Mechanism Used

Figure 6.11: Raw Materials Inventory Held

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Figure 6.12: WIP Inventory Held

Figure 6.13: Finished Goods Inventory Held

However, it is interesting to note that 69 per cent of the companies had a breakdown of their
vendor's cost for important items. Having cost data implies a level of trust and it is a requisite for
joint cost-reduction efforts, the benefits of which are shared by both the company and vendor.
The ultimate goal of vendor development is realized when the vendor reaches a stage of zero
defects in quality and delivery. This enables the vendor to ship materials or components directly

105

to the buyer's shop floor, cutting out a lot of waste from the system. This stage had been reached
by less than one-fourth of the responding companies. Though product quality improvement is
stated to be the most strategic objective in manufacturing (Figure 6.4) and TQM is the most
widely used management tool (Figure 6.5), it is ironic to see that the results of the quality
movement are only beginning to show on the shop floor.
About 50 per cent of the responding companies stated that they had defect rates, before rework,
of up to I per cent. A major chunk of the responding companies stated defect rates of 1-3 per
cent, which was far above the global standards of parts per million (PPM) or defect rates on the
order of 0.0001 per cent. Companies also reported defect rates of more than 5 per cent. The
redeeming factor here was that the profile of defect rates would probably have been much worse
had a similar survey been carried out 'five years ago. Also on the positive side, 10 companies reported defect rates of less than 0.1 per cent.
The use of TPM (Figure 6.5) has not resulted in World-Class maintenance practices. Perhaps, as
in the case of quality, the need for significant improvement in this area has been felt only in the
last five years. Only one third of the respondents have reported downtime percentages of less
than 2 per cent. Unlike zero defects, which many experts agree is a long-tern goal, near-zero
downtime should definitely be achievable.

Figure 6.14: Average Pipeline Inventory in the Finished Goods Distribution System
The disquieting finding was that none of the respondents had switched to predominantly cellular
layouts, which are generally considered one of the foundations for World-Class manufacturing in
the discrete manufacturing sector. The remaining types of layouts were in keeping with the
conventional trends. Generally speaking, product layouts are used when the scale of production
favors dedicated production facilities, process layouts in the case of batch production and fixed
position layouts rue used in heavy industries where the 'job' does not move and equipment is
moved around it.
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Figure 6.15: Average Percentage Defect Rate (Before Rework)

Set-up/changeover time is the key to 'lean' production in any plant that processes multiple
materials on the same equipment. Large set up times force longer production runs and result in
larger inventories, longer cycle and slower response to the market. This was the realization
that led development to the development of the SMED concept by Shigeo Shingo. SMED refers
to set up times in 'single' minutes, i.e. less than 10 minutes. The concept is not restricted to press
shops. Only two responding companies had reached this stage, while 11 companies were close to
it. They constituted about 15 per cent of the survey sample.

Figure 6.16: Average Downtime Percentage

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.7 IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND PRACTICES

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------IT applications have by now entered almost all the companies, but mostly in an uncoordinated
way, without long-term integration plans or automation strategies. Individual departments
introduced computers and purchased or developed software to support their own departmental
operations. This fragmented approach divided a company into small and almost autonomous
enterprises, each using a computer to make their department and its associated activities work
more efficiently. Thus, many departments acquired computers, developed and installed
computerized systems, as a result of the enterprise consisted of many 'islands of automation'. It
soon became clear that the smooth transfer of information between enterprise activities and even
within departments was a burden, if at all possible. Consequently, the first move towards
integration was made to study possibilities between the functions through networking and data
sharing.

Figure 6.17: Set-Up/Changeover Time

Figure 6.18 shows the number of companies which had (a) computerized and (b) networked
departments. Ironically, in India's manufacturing industry, the departments that have been
computerized to the greatest extent are finance and accounts, stores, and purchasing/vendor
development. This reflects a 'transaction processing' mentality. Design/engineering, production
planning and control (PPC), production, quality assurance and quality control (QA/Qc), are in
the second tier while marketing, distribution, human resource management (HRM) and projects
form the rear. Interestingly, this pattern has no correlation with the perceived importance of and
usefulness of computers in managerial tasks. Also evident from Figure 6.18 is the fact that many
investments have been made in IT without reaping any benefits through networking.
Figures 6.19 and 6.20 show the number of companies that used certain categories of software

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applications. Office automation software, which is used for information management, dominates
manufacturing software.

Figure 6.18: Department-wise Extent of Computerization

Figure 6.19: Extent of Use of Office Automation Software

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In the office automation area, presentation packages were the least used, with 67 per cent
companies using them. In the case of manufacturing software, the applications with the largest
base were materials accounting and computer aided design and drafting. Both these applications
are used by approximately 58 per cent and 59 per cent respondents, respectively. MRP II and
enterprise resource planning (ERP) were used by 20 per cent of the companies. The
manufacturing application with the smallest base was simulation, which is widely used
internationally.

Figure 6.20: Extent of Use of Manufacturing Software

MRP II produces feasible production plans to help stabilize and control manufacturing systems.
ERP is concerned with making sure that a firm's manufacturing decisions are not made without
taking into account their impact on the supply chain, both upstream and downstream. Taken further, production decisions are affected by and affect all of the other major areas in the business,
including engineering, accounting and marketing to make better decisions. There is a need to
take into account all these important interactions within a business. ERP software is the medium
for accomplishing this integration of decision-making processes. Since nearly every department
in a company could be computerized, ERP software can link and coordinate all of these
computerized functions, to make them 'talk' to each other.
Groupware refers to software designed to help business teams work together across locations. It
coordinates schedules, messages and workflow among group members, and usually includes
modules for group analysis and decision-making, as well as group document preparation.
Similarly, an intranet is an internet-based network for use within an organisation. Figure 6.21
deals with managerial opinion on two related trends that are making waves globally today.
Groupware and intranets help companies to combine the uses of databases and electronic
messages (E-mail). What results is 'the death of distance' as far as information sharing is
concerned. Information may be simultaneously made available to managers located on different
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continents. Interestingly, a small number (less than l0 in each case) of the responding companies
had already used intranets and/or groupware. Intranets had a slight edge here. A large number of
companies (about 25) were considering both these applications. An equally large number had not
considered them yet. Interest in these developments seems to be at a threshold level.

Figure 6.21: Status of Use of Groupware and intranets

Figures 6.22 through 6.25 provide interesting insights into the nature and causes of
implementation of ERP software in the Indian manufacturing industry. Interest in ERP has
crossed the threshold level, with about 25 per cent of responding companies' stating that they
were evaluating the available ERP packages and -about 20 per cent stating that the selection
process has been completed or that implementation was in progress. 13 per cent of the
responding companies had considered and rejected ERP. About 31 per cent of the respondents
had not considered it yet or were not aware of it. From those responding companies that had
gained some exposure to ERP, the following trends emerge:

The deciding factor for selection of a package was its functionality. The recommendation
of parent companies was the deciding factor in some cases.

The bad news for those who position ERP software as a template for reengineering was
that the major benefit from ERP was perceived to be 'integration of different departments
and easy access to data'. 'Fundamental improvements through re-engineering and
streamlining the processes of manufacturing' was a distant second.

'Lack of fit of existing processes with features provided by the package' and 'lack of
availability of personnel for implementation and use of the package' were the biggest
problems for those going in for ERP implementation.
111

Figure 6. 26 shows the extent of use of electronic interchange of data across departments within
companies. As shown in the figure, the use of electronic links is gaining ground, with more than
half of the responding companies reporting its use between stores and purchase. Electronic links
between stores and PPC, and production and PPC were also quite widely used. Such electronic
links could be made possible due to the increasing interdepartmental connectivity and use of
ERP-type or groupware-type software packages.

Figure 6.22: Present Status of ERP

Figure 6.23: Selection Factor of ERP

112

Figure 6.24: Perceived Benefits of ERP

Figure 6.25: Problems Encountered in Implementation

113

Figure 6.26: Departments between Which Data Transfer in Fully Electronic

The previous section gives a summary of the survey. The figures given there present snapshots of
an industry in a stage of transition, operating in one of the big emerging markets of the worldIndia. In addition, these findings also raise some important research issues that have been
addressed briefly in the sub-sections that follow. These issues are:
The stated manufacturing objectives of Indian organisation vis--vis international trends.
Breadth of IT infrastructure with respect to the depth of IT use in manufacturing.
The effectiveness of use of IT in integrating the components of manufacturing systems.
Breadth versus extent of integration of IT infrastructure.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.8 THE MANUFACTURING STRATEGIC INTENT FRAMEWORK

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In order to compare the manufacturing objectives of the participant organisations with those of
World-Class manufacturers, we propose a two way classification called the manufacturing
strategic intent (MANSI) grid. This compares the manufacturing objectives on two dimensionsto be an agile manufacturer, or to be a conventional manufacturer (stressing capacity utilisation).
This classification has two inherent assumptions:
1. The stated objectives of the respondents were actually the strategic objectives of the
responding companies; and
2. The practices of the responding companies reflect their stated objectives.
Maskell (1994) defines agile manufacturing as 'a series of techniques that have been used by
good companies to bring about unprecedented improvements in quality, productivity and
customer service. These techniques are not new, many have been available for several decades,
114

and others have been developed gradually over the last 30 years by innovative companies like
Toyota.' He identifies quality, just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, people and flexibility as the
bases of agile manufacturing.
Conventional mass producers are driven by internal objectives that are centered on efficiency.
The prime example of an efficiency-oriented measure is capacity utilisation. Agile
manufacturers, on the contrary, are driven by multiple objectives (e.g. faster new product
development, flexibility of volume and mix, quality, on-time delivery and lead time reduction,
etc.), which focus on effectiveness in meeting the needs of the external customer.
The objective of agile manufacturing is to produce to demand and avoid speculative production.
This brings manufacturing closer to the market. As Taiichi Ohno (1992) wrote, what is important
is that the operable rate of equipment-2...the percentage of time for which the equipment is ready
for operation when required-should be 100 per cent. The operating rate the percentage of
available time for which the equipment was actually operated-should be determined by demand.
Manufacturers will have to achieve World-Class manufacturing status to compete effectively in
the global market. Therefore, World-Class manufacturers emphasize agile objectives and deemphasise capacity utilisation. This classification places a manufacturer into one of the
following four types (Figure 6.27):
1. World-Class Players: Companies that have the potential to be World Class. These are
those which rated agile objectives above 3 and capacity utilisation below or equal to 3 on
a five-point scale.
2. Transitional Players: Companies that rated both agile objectives and capacity utilisation
above 3. These are companies that can make the transition to World-Class players.
3. Licence-Regime Survivors: Companies which rated agile objectives below or equal to
3, and capacity utilisation above 3. These companies continue to operate with objectives
that would have led to success before the liberalisation of the economy.
4. Inertia players: Companies that rated both objectives below 3 are surviving on inertia.
The reasons for their survival could include a monopolistic or oligopolistic market.
As we would expect in any emerging market, the largest chunk of the responding companies is in
the transitional players' quadrant. This signifies an industry in transition.
Having the right objectives may not always lead to superior performance. However, operating
without these objectives is virtually guaranteed to lead to competitive disadvantage. The
companies that are in the MANSI world-Class players' quadrant have, therefore, achieved a
necessary, but not a sufficient condition.

115

Figure 6.27: MANSI Classification of the Responding Companies

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.9

STRATEGIC USE OF IT IN INDIAN MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The needs and skills required to manage today's businesses in a global environment are far
different than what they were just a decade ago. Clearly we need a new way of looking at
manufacturing, for the way we have considered it in the past is no longer sufficient. With rapid
changes in IT and manufacturing technology, firms are getting increasingly interested in
managing the strategy-technology connection to develop new ways of achieving competitive
advantage (Applegate et al. 1996). Firms are attempting to link manufacturing strategy with
business strategy (Skinner 1985; Wheel right 1981; Luftman 1996), to examine the strategic
impact of rapidly changing manufacturing and information technology (Jelinek and Goldhar
1983; Kantrow 1980), and to find new ways of viewing manufacturing as a competitive weapon
(Skinner 1985; Hayes and Wheel right 1984; Jelinek and Goldhar, 1983). Information
technology is a key ingredient in this emerging trend of getting competitive advantage through
manufacturing.
Today's emphasis on competing through manufacturing may stimulate firms to reassess their
alignment of IT strategy with business strategy. New ideas concerning how IT can change the
way firms compete are being explored (Applegate et al. 1996; Callon 1996; Jelassi 1994).
However, computer integrated manufacturing (CIM), which blends recent developments in
manufacturing and IT to achieve competitive advantage, can provide full strategic benefits only
if there exists a broadened partnership of top management as well as engineering, marketing,
manufacturing and IT executives, all of whom share a common vision of how CIM makes
possible new approaches to designing business systems. But, as is evident from the analysis
given above, most companies have focused on 'stand-alone' applications of CIM component
technologies, such as computer numerical control (CNC) machines, computerized bill-ofmaterials and turnkey CAD systems that improve engineering design productivity.
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Obviously it will be somewhat premature to discuss strategic use of IT (i.e. CIM) in such a
'stand-alone' applications environment. Hence, what has been done here is to develop taxonomy
of IT applications role and use it to define the breadth and depth of IT infrastructure.
Scheer (1994) had proposed an 'Architecture of Integrated Information Systems' (ARIS). ARIS is
used here as a conceptual framework for visualizing the roles that IT applications can play in
running a business as opposed to the functions performed by them. As shown in the Figure 6.28,
these range from operative systems, which essentially record quantities, to long-term decision
support systems. The higher the level of IT applications in the ARIS classification, the more is
the likelihood of using IT strategically. The outlined portion of the diagram represents the thrust
areas for IT use for most Indian manufacturers (the bases for this conclusion are the findings in
Figures 6.18, 6.19 and 6.20). Unfortunately this usage profile precludes the use of IT for
sophisticated tasks such as planning and decision support. The emphasis on accounting systems
indicates a 'data processing' mentality. Even the data-processing' capabilities are not fully
harnessed because of lack of integration.

Figure 6.28: Usage of IT in Indian Manufacturing Architecture of Information System

The important implication for managers, however, is that a companywide, integrated IT
infrastructure should be viewed only as a prerequisite towards the ultimate stage of using
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information leading to decision support for strategic planning. For example, IT -generated inputs
could be used to speed up the accounts receivable process instead of just tracking sales and
performing credit checks. This would be a transition to a controlling role. At a higher level, the
analysis reveals that the benefits from this step could be used to reduce prices. This would be a
strategic role.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.10 CLASSIFICATION BY BREADTH OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE AND

DEPTH OF MANUFACTURING APPLICATIONS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In recent years, Indian manufacturing industry is increasingly feeling the need to harness IT to
manage information flows for more responsive manufacturing. The predominance of materials
accounting and computer aided design and drafting has begun to give way to other applications.
In order to assess the perception of this need and its impact on emerging IT infrastructure in
manufacturing, we propose a conceptual framework exploring IT utilisation across two
dimensions of its breadth and depth. The breadth dimension of prevailing IT infrastructure in a
company is assessed by the number of departments that have been computerised, and companies
with more than five computerised departments out of a total of 11 were classified as those with a
high breadth. The depth of IT use in manufacturing can be measured by the number of layers
computerised in the ARIS architecture. However, as shown in Figure 6.28, it is limited to the
bottom-most two layers for all the participating companies. Hence, the ARIS architecture has not
been used as the basis for defining the depth. Instead, depth of IT utilisation is measured by the
number of categories of IT applications in an organisation out of the 10 applications mentioned
ill the questionnaire (Figure 6.20). The depth is considered high if more than 3 applications out
of the 10 existed.

High

Depth in
Manufacturing
Low

Islands of
Automation
1%
Companies

Resource
Optimizing
31%
Companies

Resource
Accounting
19%
Companies

Office
Automation
49%
Companies

Low

High
Breadth of IT Infrastructure

Figure 6.29: Classification in terms of Breadth of IT Infrastructure and Depth in

Manufacturing Applications

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The resulting classifications are given in Figure 6.29:

1. Resource Optimizing: These companies had used their extensive IT infrastructure to the
hilt by using a number of manufacturing applications.
2. Islands of Automation: This has long been the bane of the manufacturing companies.
The depth of IT use in manufacturing is nit leveraged adequately due to the less
developed infrastructure ( low breadth) in these companies.
3. Resource Accounting: These companies were stuck in the 6os with neither adequate
breadth of ~IT nor depth of manufacturing applications. Computer applications would
probably be limited to payroll and similar other areas.
4. Office Automation: These companies had invested in a broad IT infrastructure~ but
have not capitalized on it to use IT as a manufacturing management aid. Applications
used would typically include office automation suites and e-mail.
A large number of the responding companies fell in the office automation quadrant. This can be
imputed to the fact that the need for sophisticated use of IT in manufacturing has been felt only
recently by industry at large. The effective use of applications such as computer-aided process
planning~ simulation~ shop floor control~ etc will enable the shift to the resource optimization.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.11 CLASSIFICATION BY BREADTH AND INTEGRATION OF IT

INFRASTRUCTURE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------CIM seeks to integrate 'stand-alone' design and engineering, manufacturing and business
decision support systems into the manufacturing of the future. Thus, integration of IT
infrastructure is yet another dimension of the move towards CIM, which facilitates strategic use
of IT and has not been addressed so far in the analysis.
The extent of integration in a company's IT infrastructure is therefore a key indicator of the
potential for strategic use of IT. We have awarded two points to each company for each data
transfer (out of a list of seven provided in the questionnaire) that is fully automated and one point
for each department that is networked. Companies with a score higher than 10 were classified as
highly integrated companies. The basis for measuring the breadth of IT infrastructure was the
number of departments in which computers were used, as in the previous section.
The categories into which we classified the responding companies are (Figure 6.30):
1. Holistic approach: These companies had attained a high degree of integration and
possess a high breadth IT infrastructure.
2. Slice approach: Companies which had computerised only a few departments but had
gone in for extensive integration.
3. Piecemeal approach: Companies that had low breadth and low integration. They may
not be able to extract productivity gains from IT.
4. Scattered approach: Companies that had high breadth but had not leveraged it to attain
high integration.

119

We have a large number of companies in the scattered approach quadrant. This was probably due
to the propensity of management to invest in 'computers' without realizing the role of integration
in using IT strategically. However, the recent interest in ERP software shows that companies are
becoming increasingly aware of this need.

High

Slice
Approach
1%
Companies

Holistic
Approach
25%
Companies

Extent of Integration
Low

Piecemeal
Approach
19%
Companies

Scattered
Approach
55%
Companies

Breadth of IT Infrastructure
Figure 6.30: Classification in Terms of Breadth and Integration of IT Infrastructure.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GLOBALIZATION AND WORLD CLASS MANUFACTURING

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
7.1 Business Strategy and Global Competitiveness
7.2 Generic Manufacturing Strategies for Information Age.
7.2.1 Dynamic product and process change: Innovation strategy
7.2.2 Stable product and process change: Mass production strategy
7.2.3 Dynamic product change, stable process change: Mass customization
7.2.4 Stable product and dynamic process change
7.3 Developing Strategic Thinking in Manufacturing
7.4 Issues in Strategic Planning For World-Class Manufacturing
7.5 Barriers to Using IT Strategically
7.6 Strategic Planning Methodology for World-Class Manufacturing
7.7 Implementing the World-Class Manufacturing Plan
7.8 Need for Performance Measurement
7.8.1 PO-P System
7.8.2 TOPP System
7.8.3 AMBITE System
7.8.4 Quality Performance
7.8.5 Cycle Time
7.8.6 Delivery Performance an Customer Service
7.8.7 Financial Performance Measures
7.8.8 The Balance Score Card
7.9 Conclusion
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.1 BUSINESS STRATEGY AND GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The term 'strategy' has become one of the most overused and broadly defined words in business
literature. Strategies are derived and emerge from a firms complex set of business, competitive;
Organisational and environmental circumstances, and are often not clearly articulated or universally agreed upon. Porter neatly sums up the concept of strategy as emerging to help
managers transform the daily chaos of events and decisions into an orderly way of sizing up a
firms position in its environment (Porter 1980; 1996). In this way, useful strategies enable tradeoffs and choices, and provide guidance for decision-making throughout the firm. According to
Minzberg (1989), strategy is a firm's collective intention, where formulation and implementation
merge in a fluid process through which creative strategies evolve. Strategies continually change
121

and the strategy of successful firms is opportunistic and adaptive (Kay 1993).
Given this perspective, strategies must be sufficiently specified, articulated and communicated to
develop and allocate resources appropriately. Weill and Broadbent (1998) refer to strategic
context in terms of three constructs: strategic intent, current strategy and businesss goals. The
strategic intent of a firm specifies its long-term, stable goals-a worthwhile destination for where
a firm desires to go (Hamel and Prahalad 1989), and which should require a stretch for the firm.
Current strategy specifies how the firm will do business today-the combination of products and
services offered customers, channels and price and quality levels. Current strategies have
relatively short lives and many firm have new ones every 12 months or so. The business goals of
a firm emanate from its strategic intent and current strategies, and include quantitative and
qualitative business targets, with measures to determine progress.
Competitive strategy, according to Porter (1996), is the process of perceiving new positions that
woo customers from established positions or draw new customers into the market. In this
context, there is a need to distinguish between operational effectiveness and strategy.
Operational effectiveness means performing similar activities better than one's rivals, whereas
strategic positioning entails performing activities different from those of the rivals' or
performing similar activities in different ways. Strategies positioning of firms are often not
obvious and finding them requires creativity and insight. For example, new competitors in the
industry often discover unique positions that have been available but overlooked by established
competitors. But most new competitive positions open up because of change. New customer
groups arise; new needs emerge as societys ev6lve; new distribution channels appear; new
technologies are developed; and new information systems become available. These changes
create opportunities for new competitors unencumbered by a long history in the industry (and not
bound by its accepted rules and practices), thus creating the potential for new ways of
competing. For instance, the emergence of Internet has opened new channels giving rise to new
competitive strategies in both the manufacturing and service sectors.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.2 GENERIC MANUFACTURING STRATEGIES FOR INFORMATION

AGE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Most manufacturing companies are now experiencing rapid and continuous change in their
business environment, which can be identified in terms of product change and/or in terms of
process change (Luftman 1996). Product change characterises the demands for new goods or
new services. Companies change their products because of competitor moves, shifting customer
preferences, or the entry to new geographical or national markets. Process change refers to
altering the procedures and technologies used to produce or deliver products or services. In this
context, a process refers broadly to all of the Organisational capabilities resulting from people,
systems, technologies and procedures that are used to develop, produce, market and deliver
products or services.

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Dynamics

Mass Customization

Innovation

Mass Production

Continuous
Improvement

Product
Change
Stable

Stable

Dynamics

Figure: 7.1: Manufacturing Strategies for Change

These two types of change can be classified as either stable or dynamic. Stable change is slow,
evolutionary and generally predictable, while dynamic change is rapid, often revolutionary and
generally unpredictable. Taken together, these two types of changes provide a matrix of four
possible combinations of 'change conditions' that can confront an organisation. Thus, a matrix
can be built in which each of these combinations defines a strategic business model appropriate
to the conditions (Figure 7.1). This matrix of manufacturing strategies can serve as a valuable
lens through which an organisation can: (i) assess its competitive position by understanding
where it has been in the past; (ii) continuously choose a strategic business model appropriate to
the present and (anticipated) future environment; and (iii) clarify how to strategically align the
business and IT strategies, infrastructure and processes appropriate to the strategic model. The
matrix combinations and the relevant manufacturing strategies are described below.

7.1.1 Dynamic Product and Process Change: Innovation Strategy

The focus of innovation strategy is to frequently create small volumes of new products, while
constantly innovating the processes required to develop and produce them. These organisations
are often separate research and development units within mass production organisations, such as
Bell Laboratories. Such organisations are inherently designed for change since product
specifications and work processes are unpredictable and constantly shifting. To compete under
innovation conditions, organisations decentralize decision-making, broadly define jobs, develop
few rules or procedures and subjectively evaluate performance.

7.1.2 Stable Product and Process Change: Mass Production Strategy

Throughout the twentieth century, most large organisations have competed under the conditions
of relatively stable and predictable product specifications and demand. This permits them to
standardize products, centralize decision-making, routinise work and reward, develop and
enforce standard rules and procedures, and allocate work to dedicated, specialized jobs i.e. to

123

mass-produce goods or services. The focus of these firms is on efficiency through stability and
control, always basing their strategy on economies of scale and low costs, and striving for the
largest size and lowest cost structure in the industry. The Organisational structure of such firm is
often large, hierarchical, bureaucratic and vertically integrated. Their competitive advantage and
profitability are based on reduction of unit costs and, therefore, change in either process or
product is an anathema to the mass production strategy. Consequently, the design for stability
requires limiting both product variety as well as process innovation.
While mass production and innovation have been the predominant focus of competitive strategy
during the twentieth century, today the situation has changed, with neither simultaneous dynamic
product-dynamic process change nor simultaneous stable product-stable process change. In such
a situation, two more strategies

7.2.3 Dynamic Product Change, Stable Process Change: Mass Customization

Organisations in a number of industries are facing customers making increasingly unique and
unpredictable product demands. However, the basic processes that these companies are
instituting to meet these demands soon evolve into identifiable patterns enabling them to build
stable but flexible platforms of process capabilities. Such companies, therefore, need to be
organized and managed for mass customization (Pine 1993). It is the ability to serve a wide range
of customers and to meet changing product demands through product variety and innovation
while simultaneously building on existing long-term process experience and knowledge that
results in increased efficiencies. The focus of these firms is on individual customer fulfillment
through flexibility and responsiveness. The major distinguishing characteristic of the mass
customization strategy is the capacity to produce product variety rapidly and inexpensively. This
requires a set of modular process capabilities with a linkage system that allows them to be
brought together instantly for any particular customer order. Consequently, instead of
centralizing all decision-making for a single value chain, these organisations centralize
coordination and control in the hub of a web of loosely-linked processing units.

7.2.4 Stable Product and Dynamic Process Change

Continuous improvement in some industries, such as automobiles and machine tools, the nature
of product demand is still relatively mature, stable, large and homogeneous. But the competition
in these industries is based on dynamic process terms, i.e. the organisations are competing by
achieving constant improvement in process quality, speed and cost. The focus of organisations in
these industries is on customer satisfaction through process improvement. As opposed to mass
production firms, they are very customer- or market- focused, striving to better satisfy the market
as a whole through continuous process improvement. These organisations manage rapid
innovation and the use of new process capabilities and, therefore, require systems and structures
that facilitate long-term organizational learning about products but simultaneously achieving
radical changes in the processes. To make process innovation efficient, these organisations
employ cross-functional teams that collaborate to improve processes or plan for product
enhancement. The members of these teams then turn to their function-specific work and execute
the rules they just developed, accomplishing a sort of micro transformation. In this sense, the
teams of continuous improvement firms need to be as process-innovative as 'invention'
organisations, and as process-efficient as 'mass production' firms.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.3 DEVELOPING STRATEGIC THINKING IN MANUFACTURING

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Strategic thinking is concerned with the future development of business enterprise as a whole. It
is usually described as 'long-term', but how long, depends on the industry in which the firm
operates. Thus, in the pharmaceutical and aircraft construction industries, long-term planning
means 10 years or more, but for a small software company it might mean two years. Most
managers feel that three to five years is the realistic limit for their long-term planning. Most also
feel that this period is getting shorter as competitive pressure and the general speed of business
increase.
Another important point is that strategic thinking is about' constructing the future' rather than
'predicting the future'. It is creative in the sense that the enterprise identifies where it wants the
business to be and then thinks about how to get it there. Strategic thinking requires answers to
the three questions shown in Figure 7.2, in the right order.
Question 1: Where are we now?
This takes stock of the current business situation, both in terms of the enterprise itse1f and the
business environment in which it operates. It is often done by the familiar strengths, weaknesses,
opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis.
Question 1.
Where are we
now? (SWOT)

Question 2.
Where do we
want to be?
(Vision)

Question 3
How will we get
there? (Strategy)

Figure 7.2: Strategic Thinking in Manufacturing

Question 2: Where do we want to be?
This requires a creative and imaginative response after digesting all the detail arising from the
first question. It requires the ability to consider novel opportunities, perhaps based on the new
use of technology in the business. The answer to this question is expressed as the vision for the
enterprise, for some time in the future. Deriving directly from this may be the mission statement,
which is a simple narrative statement of what the enterprise aims to be or to become, stated in the
form of a series of business objectives. The vision and mission statements together describe the
strategic intent of the company.

125

Question 3: How will we get there?

Answer to this question will produce a broad plan for getting the firm from its current position
(defined in the answer to the first question) to where the firm wants to be (defined in the answer
to the second question). This broad plan of development is called the (current) strategy. It is
usually expressed in narrative terms, with few quantified aspects.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.4 ISSUES IN STRATEGIC

MANUFACTURING

PLANNING

FOR

WORLD-CLASS

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The manufacturing function of an organisation is primarily concerned with internal activities (the
production process), whereas other functions, like marketing are involved primarily in external
operations (customer contact). Furthermore, the manufacturing capabilities of an organisation
determine how effectively the marketing function can satisfy the customers, consequently,
manufacturing decision can often instrumental in restricting, reinforcing and determining the
firms overall strategy. Thus an effective business strategy can only be developing by fully
integration manufacturing decision it to the strategic planning process. However in order to
accomplish this, a number of issued needs to be addressed. Some of these issues are:

Involvement of line managers in strategic planning: In many organisations, where

planning is identified as a separate function, it is still carried out by the planning group
that in many cases does not include line operating managers. However, planning
performed by a planning staff in a vacuum generally results in sufficient implementation.
It must, therefore, be realized by companies that planning is a management tool for line
managers. Therefore, operating managers must become deeply involved in planning to
reduce the risk of plan implementation failure.

Lack of planning orientation in manufacturing culture: In many organisations,

involving operating managers is a major problem since the traditional manufacturing
culture does not encourage planning. However, one of the keys to IBM's success is that
its managers never stopped planning, and this became a major part of any manager's job
in IBM. This view must also be propagated throughout the culture of manufacturing in
order to enable businesses to operate more effectively.

Lack of IT usage as a strategic resource: Some companies manage IT merely as a

technology and some others perceive IT as enabler of information management. The
technological view of IT sees costs as an operating expense and, therefore, in these
companies the attention of the management is primarily focused on reduced cost for
efficiency sake. On the contrary, an organisation using IT for information management
views information as a corporate resource sees IT as a capital investment for which
maximum management attention should be on maximization of its breadth. When the IT
strategy provides the framework for what is spent, then that spending can be defined as
an investment. However, when there is no sense of direction, then IT spending may
simply represent an ongoing expense. This shift in perception changes IT budgeting as a
'separate' issue to business goal with business profitable projects.
IT investment levels are frequently quoted in revenue ratios and, according to many
126

experts; they should be in the range of 1 to 5 per cent in the case of organisations
investing in IT successfully. According to a recent survey of top 50 IT spending
companies in India, there was only one company spending more than 4 per cent of its
revenue on IT, five companies were spending more than 3 percent, three companies were
spending more than 2 per cent, eight companies were spending than. 1 percent and rest
were spending less than 1 per cent (Data Quest 1996). Most of these companies perceive
that IT could improve their business efficiency and productivity, and may give better
access to information. Only about 15 per cent of these believed that IT could provide
customer satisfaction or could give marketing and sales advantage, i.e. may have strategic
impact. Thus, it is clear that most Indian companies do not perceive IT as a long term
investment for gaining strategic advantage and, therefore, treat it merely as an expense
item. This perhaps might explain why there are not many companies having a high extent
of integration as well as high breadth of IT infrastructure. It also explains why a
company's use of IT is limited to value-oriented accounting systems and not exploiting it
for long-term planning and decision support (as per Scheer's framework, Perhaps, this
might be because until recently Indian manufacturing was not exposed to global
competition. But in the changed scenario, such an attitude is dangerous because it tends
to make companies less competitive, thereby treating them to major business
disadvantages. We believe that this is a serious issue that needs to be addressed through
proper education and further research.

Need for a formal planning methodology: Another problem facing planning is the
absence of formal planning process (or methodology) to translate the strategic vision of
the company into an implement able, long-term action programme in any internal
function to obtain competitive advantage and move it towards World-Class performance?
We describe here a simple methodology to accomplish this.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.5 BARRIERS TO USING IT STRATEGICALLY

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Kantrow (1980) argues that in order to expedite strategic opportunities arising from technology,
an entrepreneurial attitude for senior management is required to:

View new technology as a central part of business thinking;

Examine how the key decisions of senior managers can be affected by new technology;
Examine cross-functional Organisational utilization of technology; and
Consider the planning and. production processes required to exploit the technology. .

Whereas an increasing number of companies in India are adopting this attitude with regards to
manufacturing technologies that are relevant to their industries, they are not doing the same with
respect to IT
Another barrier to strategic use of IT is a corporate environment where middle management is
averse to risk. If there is intolerance for new ideas (related to IT use), whomsoever they may
come from, there is no change that they will be accepted. The idea may be simply rejected, often
with the reason that it will never work because it is not the way things are being done here.
Similarly, companies that do not take a long-term view of funding IT application R&D create a
127

barrier to exploiting IT.

A final barrier is rewarding short-term success and punishing failure. Creative IT application
costs more and takes longer to develop. If IT people receive bonuses based on short-term
performance, they may not like to work on long-term innovative projects.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.6 STRATEGIC PLANNING METHODOLOGY FOR WORLD-CLASS

MANUFACTURING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The planning process proposed here focuses on translating the strategic vision of a company into
an implement able, long-term action programmes to obtain competitive advantage and move it
towards World-Class performance. In addition to business strategy, the planning process focuses
on two more functions; manufacturing and IT, though the primary focus is on manufacturing.
The challenge of CIM is taking advantage of rapid changes in IT and manufacturing technology
to design a new business strategy. Business strategy focuses on competitive advantage and
emphasizes creating synergy among major functional policy decisions, such as manufacturing
system design and product line policies (Hofer and Schendel 1978). The various steps in the
planning process are described below.
Step 1. Examining the Strategic Position: The strategic context of a firm, as stated before, is
specified by the strategic intent, current strategy and business goals. In order to specify these, the
planning team should assess the firm's (Gunn 1987):

Strengths and weaknesses

Industry bases of competition
Global competitive position
Industry structure and dynamics
Industry maturity

This Assessment will give a picture of the firms current strategic position. Then, new strategic
thrusts--that is, acquisition, new markets or products--can be evaluated and selected. These when
combined with the firm's current strategic profile, makes up the firm's business strategy.
In order to derive competitive advantage from manufacturing the strategy should itself be
derived from the business strategy of the firm. Furthermore, strategic manufacturing requires
using information strategically (as described in earlier chapters), therefore, the use of IT in
manufacturing should be driven by an IT strategy, which is in alignment with the manufacturing
strategy. Thus, we need to focus on two internal functions in creating a total picture of the firms
strategic position: information systems and manufacturing (Figure 7.3).

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Business Strategy

IT Strategy

Manufacturing
Strategy

Figure 7.3: A Framework for a Firms Strategic Positioning

Step 2. Setting Up the Planning Team: The selection of the members of the strategic planning
team is critical to the success of the entire effort for WCM. The planning team members must be
key senior managers, who have the following characteristics:

An established power base/authority

Reputation for action orientation
Knowledge of the companies business
Credibility and respect within the organization
Willingness to learn, grow and change

Functionally, the WCM planning team should include at least one senior person from the
following functions
Manufacturing or production
Design engineering
Quality management
Human resources
Distribution
Materials management\ production scheduling
Purchasing
Marketing\sales
Accounting/finance
In the selection of planning team members, a CEO can have a real impact on the progress of the
WCM programmes. First the CEO can make sure the team comprises the best executives.
Second, the CEO can ensure that the team contains a balance of skilled and experienced

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(generally older) managers as well as young, aggressive champions who want to change the old
ways of doing things. Third, the CEO may understand the teams political power structure and
avoid building a team building a team whose progress will be stalemated by disputes between
two political rivals over the future direction of the company.
Step 3. Assessment of the companys current manufacturing capabilities: An objective
assessment of the companys current manufacturing capabilities is critical for the WCM planning
activity. Often, companies managers take this for granted or assume that they know where they
stand today and that all members of the team are in agreement with reference to the status of
current manufacturing capabilities. However, this is rarely the case in practice. A few managers
may be aware of the current status of manufacturing capability but rarely is there any company
wide awareness or consensus about it.
This step involves taking a snapshot of the company as it currently exists, by interviewing
people, plant tours and examination of various business records. The snapshot should create an
objective manufacturing profile (by product line and/or for each facility) of the company's:

Cost
Product
Facilities
IT
Skills
Processes
Quality Level
Material flow

Supply Chain
Distribution Chain
Capacities
New Product Per Year
Inventory Turnover
Lead Time
Engineering Mix

The next task would be to examine the plant facilities. Are they modern with good material flow,
lighting, etc, or are they choked buildings with various bottlenecks and hindrances to good
manufacturing practices?
Next, the team should examine the information system and the technology (IS/IT) the company
has in place. What processing capabilities, telecommunication networks and databases are
available across all business units as well as from outside? How current is the technology? What
kind of software packages and applications are there? What is the IT budget as a percentage of
net sales?
What basic skills and processes do the company's workers perform well? What about quality
costs? What percentage of sales do they represent and how has that varied historically? Similar
questions should be asked for all the items in the list given above.
Often the assessment of a company's current manufacturing capabilities serves as an extremely
good mechanism for educating senior managers, not only as to its current status, but also to the
fact that it is a long way from where it should be for the WCM status.
Step 4: Assessing the Competition: A company wishing to win in global competition must find
out as much information about each of its global competitors and their capability to manufacture
as it ascertains in its assessment of its own plant in Step 3. Of more concern then the
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competitor's distribution, sales force, and so on, is how capably it designs and produces its
products, how thoroughly can those products satisfy customer expectations and what the cost
structure of their manufacturing is to perform this kind of competitor analysis, one can make use
of published annual reports and company histories, and even their internet web sites if they have
them. If the competitors are in the US, there are many Securities and Exchange Commission
documents that provide valuable information. Additionally, the information may also be
obtained from consultants or employees routinely hired from the competitors for this purpose.
The key objective of this exercise is to understand as much as possible about how effectively
global competitor manufacturer products. What Kind of CIM have they implemented? Do they
have total quality or Just in Time program? Where do they source their products? What might
be their labour costs? What kind of information system they have? Do they use E-commerce
and o ERP technologies? The information thus collected gives a valuable insight to the
company in term of back ground for the change it must go through in the future. If a company
knows that It is nowhere close to its global competitors in manufacturing performance, then it
should perform analysis on a more gradual and incremental basis over two or three year s while
devoting itself to becoming a world Class Manufacturer Once the company has made
considerable progress toward this end; it should also know the progress that the global
competitors have made as a reference for further efforts to get competitive advantage.
Step 5: Creating the Future Path: This step ascertains where it is possible to go in the future.
What roads will lead to the set of capabilities needed for competition as a manufacturer in global
markets? What proven technologies, approaches and practices exist? What have other companies
done-not only in the same industry on a global basis but within other industries where
technology transfer is feasible? How can those tools be used to achieve competitive advantage in
manufacturing?
In this step, the emphasis is on proven technologies, practices and philosophies. The objective is
how to get, say, 75 per cent of the benefits in 25 per cent of the time at 25 per cent of the cost.
Once those benefits are achieved, then the company can go on to fine tune the system if is important for the last 10 to 25 per cent of the benefits.
Step 6: Setting Manufacturing Strategy Objectives: Conventionally, manufacturing strategy
objectives have been defined around the following factors:

Capacity
Facilities
Technology
Vertical integration
Workforce
Quality
Production planning/material control
Organisation

While it is not wrong to consider these factors, they are not a part of the agile objectives for agile
manufacturing. They were useful in yesterday's relatively .static manufacturing and business

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environment, when markets were primarily regional or national at best. Of these factors, the most
potent for todays global manufacturing is global integration. This still carries powerful
implications for competitiveness and is a key strategic factor to consider while looking at a
companys manufacturing strategy
The new factors which should be considered in setting "a company's manufacturing strategy
objectives are:

New product lead time

Inventory turnovers
Manufacturing lead time
Quality
Flexibility
Customer service
Waste
Return on assets

All of these factors address the basis of competition in manufacturing. They focus on the
competitive aspects of being a manufacturer today. These new strategy objectives are a must for
today's dynamic manufacturing environment where business is becoming increasingly volatile
and complex, and where the competition exists today in a global market rather than regional or
national market.
Step 7: Developing Objective Achievement Plan and Identifying Necessary Tools: After
listing all the manufacturing strategy objectives, we consider how to achieve each one of these
objectives and what kit1ds of tools will be needed to do so. Generally, there can be different
ways to achieve each manufacturing strategy objective and we may choose 3 to 5 of these as
broad statements, called objective achievement plans. Having done this, we next identify tools to
achieve these plans (Figure 7.4). Here, methods like CIM, TQC, and JIT, enter into consideration
as they are perceived merely as tools to accomplish the objective achievement plans. Each tool
identified can either refer to a specific piece of technology or to a specific practice to be
implemented, such as 'buy a CAD system', 'implement robotics', or 'install a flexible
manufacturing system'.

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Business Strategy Objectives

Manufacturing Strategy
Objectives

Objective Achievement Plan

Tools for Objective

Achievement Plan

Figure 7.4: Manufacturing Planning Hierarchy

Step 8: Gaining Top Management Commitment: Step 7 completes the process for delivering
a manufacturing strategy plan. The next step is to build awareness of the implications of
implementing each one of the tools identified in Step 7. Along with this is the critical issue of
obtaining commitment from the company's top management. Often the company's top
management seems ready to lead the company forward to new world of manufacturing. But the
management's support quickly vanishes as they comprehend the amount of money, time and
effort, and the profound changes that are needed within the culture of the company to affect the
overall programmes for becoming a World-Class manufacturer. Therefore, in this step, for each
objective achievement plan, the identified tools are associated with the company function
(department) responsible for its implementation. This exercise brings company-wide awareness
of the new programmes and getting commitment for them.
Step 9: Creating the Implementation Programme: After considering all the objective
achievement plans (OAPs) and tools to implement manufacturing and business strategies, having
obtained an understanding of the implications of implementing each of these OAPs and Leading
India Towards tools, and having obtained commitment to the concept of their implementation,
the company is ready to create its World-Class manufacturing programme. The OAPs and tools
are grouped and sorted into an overall programme by searching for similarities in there
application to tasks or projects, and perhaps to departments that will be involved with each
implementation. The idea is to keep each project relatively limited in scope and easily
identifiable. Once the projects have been identified, a cost benefit analysis is carried out for each
one of them, covering the strategic as well as the financial viewpoint. All too often, the strategic
benefits from such projects are ignored or subordinated to financial aspects that are irrelevant to
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the long term competitive strength of the company. To excel and profit and survive, the company
must take strategic action and invest money to remain competitive
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.7

IMPLEMENTING THE WORLD-CLASS MANUFACTURING PLAN

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Once the World-Class manufacturing programme has been planned and its cost justified, it is
time to plan for its implementation. The implementation plan should consider the following
aspects:

Organizing for the Programme Implementation Team: The management organisation

put for implementation of the WCM programme will depend upon company culture. In
successful companies, the implementation team is often headed by a full-time corporate
(or business unit) executive whose full-time responsibility is the job of managing the
implementation such programmes. This is a high visibility position and deserves a senior
executive who has a great deal of credibility within the organisation.
WCM Programme Manager
(A Senior Executive)

WCM Steering Committee--------------------------------------------- WCM Planning and

. . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . Project Management Team

WCB
Project 1
Team

WCM
Project 2
Team

WCM
Project n
Team

Figure 7.5: Organisation for WCM Programme Implementation

Project Management and Contingency Planning: Once the organisation structure for
implementing the WCM programme has been defined, it is important to manage the
implementation project well, using a good project management system. Often WCM
implementation projects slip in their schedule due to hasty planning, iJ1adeqqate
education and training, and failure to obtain top management's commitment. Among the
contingencies to be anticipated are major changes in business conditions. Many WCM

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programme have failed because of the business condition in the company, the industry, or
the country turned negative. Alternatively, the company experienced rapid sales growth
and suddenly became 'too busy' trying to meet this demand to implement anything, much
less W-CM. These scenarios should be anticipated in the contingency planning up front
and careful planning should be done to maintain, at almost any cost, the implementation
of the programme to make the company more competitive in the global markets.

Formation of Project Implementation Teams: Select the company's most talented,

ambitious, aggressive and intelligent leaders and workers for the implementation teams.
As for the size of the team, there is always a trade-off between the number of people and
the speed of implementation, or the ability of the team to meet frequently and accomplish
work. The broader the team during the implementation, the more people will be directly
involved in the education and training, and the more people will share in the glory and
the increased self-esteem when the project is implemented. Ultimately, all the people in
the company need to be educated with regard to implementing the project so why not use
a slightly larger and broader implementation team and get a head start in the education
process.

Building and Maintaining the Programme Support: Initially, only a limited number of
people may be involved in the implementation of the programme. However, in order to
bring awareness of the WCM programme, educational seminars must be conducted for all
levels explaining CIM, JIT, TQC, etc., necessity for planning WCM programme, how the
programme will affect their jobs, and so on. For those who are not able to attend these
seminars, newsletters about the programme should be published and circulated. In
addition, it is important to conduct WCM status review meetings on a periodic basis.

Updating the WCM Programme: Updating the WCM programme is required if the
company's competitive environment changes within its industry, or the technology
changes, or the management changes its strategies or priorities. This is entirely normal
and the planning process should be constructed in such a manner that it facilitates
updating. Most of the required updating of the WCM programme is relatively minor,
reflecting changes in costs of equipment and software, or people, and occasionally
reflecting some unanticipated schedule measurement is important slippage. However
major changes in WCM programme warranted if the company gets into new market with
entirely new product or divest it self of a major part of its business or suddenly or
completely switches industries o generate a massive shift in is direction.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.8 NEED FOR PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Measurement is important because 'if you can't measure it, you can't manage it.' Thus,
performance measurement is a prerequisite to any improvement efforts in enterprises in order to
sustain the improved performance, and if possible, improve it further. An enterprise's
measurement system strongly affects the behaviour of people, both inside and outside. If
organisations are to survive and prosper in information age competition, they must use
measurement systems derived from their strategies and capabilities. Therefore, the design of any
performance measurement system should reflect the basic operating assumptions of the

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organisation it supports.
Historically, the performance measurement system for any business has been financial. However,
according to Maskell (1991), there are three primary reasons why new performance
measurements are required.
1. Traditional management accounting is no longer relevant or useful to a company moving
towards the World-Class-manufacturing environment.
2. Customers are requiring higher standards of quality performance and flexibility.
3. Management techniques used in production plants are changing significantly. '
In recent years, the world has become a much smaller place than it was in previous generation.
Marshall McLuhan's idea of the global village has come true. Traditional performance
measurement systems are frequently based on cost management accounting. These techniques
were developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to meet the needs of
expanding manufacturing industries. There are five main reasons for traditional management
accounting techniques for performance measurement (Maskell 1991).
1. Lack of relevance: Management accounting reports are indirectly related to the
manufacturing strategy and are not meaningful for control of production and distribution
operations, and are irrelevant and misleading to pricing decisions.
2. Cost distortion: Traditional cost accounting is concerned with cost elements. The
patterns of cost elements have changed in recent years and this detailed analysis is less
important. Also, the distinction between direct and indirect cost (value cost) is no longer
what it used to be and as a result traditional methods of apportion overheads can
significantly distort product cost.
3. Inflexibility: Traditional management accounting reports do not vary from plant to plant
within an organisation and they do not change over time, as business needs change.
Therefore, cost accounting reports are usually received too late to be of value and as a
result, are usually viewed with disdain by operations managers because they do not help
them with their job and can be used to blame them when variances are negative.
4. Hindrance to progress in World-Class manufacturing: Traditional methods of
assessing the pay-back period on capital projects can impede the introduction of WCM
and can compel cost managers to 'do wasteful and unnecessary task to make the figures
look good. Also concentrating on machine and labour efficient rate encourages the
production of large batch quantities and cost accounting requires a lot of detailed data
that can be costly to obtain.
Subjection to the needs of financial accounting: Too often, cost accounts are regarded as a
subsidiary ledger of financial accountants. To be of value, management accounting systems
must be based on different methods and assessments rather than on financial accountants.
These methods apply to such issues as inventory evaluation, overhead absorption and
accounting period. Due to these problems of management accounting techniques, performance
measurement system based on these techniques, are considered to be invalid for manufacturing
industries today. Apart from the problems with traditional performance measurement systems,
there are other reasons why there is a need for new performance measurement system in

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manufacturing industries.
As enterprises introduce World-Class manufacturing techniques, they need new methods of
performance measurement to control their production plants. Traditional performance
measurement systems are invalid for the measurement of WCM practices as they do not supply
the business with the required information to compete in their industry.
As traditional performance management systems are based on management accounting, they are
primarily concerned with cost. But in today's manufacturing environment, cost-based measures
are no longer the only basis for decision-making. Enterprises now require performance measures
that are based along other competitive dimensions, such as time and quality, to aid in decision
making. The new performance measurement systems required by world class manufacturing
should have the following characteristics (Maskell)

They are directly related to the manufacturing

They vary between locations.
They change over time as things change.
They are simple and easy to use.
They provide fast feedback to operators and managers.
They are intended to foster improvement rather than simply monitor performance.

Modem performance measures are not newly developed. What is new is the importance placed
on them. They have been around for some time, but only recently have World-Class
manufacturing begun to replace their cost-based performance measurement systems with ones
that truly drive the production process. Since performance measures can also dictate behaviour, it
is very important that they are suitable for the process they are measuring. When adopting these
modem measurement systems, existing systems must be abandoned. If new measures are
introduced in addition to the existing ones, then they will not have their intended usefulness and
impact. They will either be ignored because people are more familiar with the old measures or
both sets of measures will be used and the enterprise will not gain the coherence and focus that
the new measures are meant to offer. The introduction of new performance measures system
should go hand-in-hand with the introduction of new manufacturing techniques, e.g. before
business process can be re-engineered, there must be a clear strategy for the enterprise and
suitable performance measures put in place to measure the impact of the re-engineering process.
A brief description of some modem performance measurement systems is given for better
understanding.

7.8.1`The PO-P System

Using the principles of MBO and systems theory, and drawing upon the proven strength of the
techniques of multiple attribute decision and goal programming, (Prem Vrat et al. 1998)
proposed a new methodology of productivity measurement termed as Performance ObjectivesProductivity (PO-P). It is a multi criteria productivity management technique, which lays stress
on performance against the objectivated output. One of the primary and most important tasks of a
productivity measurement technique is to provide comparative information, i.e. on the rise or
decline in productivity along with the identification of opportunities for improvement
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Productivity of a system should be an indicator of its efficiency and effectiveness. However,

external environment has an impact on productivity, which can get altered without any change in
the productive efforts of the organisation. PO-P model meets these requirements.
The PO-P concept is the system productivity. The outputs are the performances of the system
(and its sub-systems). These include the tangibles as well as the intangibles covering areas, such
as goods produced, services rendered, Organisational goals and values. Also included are
performance objectives as service to community, contribution to human habitat, participation in
societal welfare so as to provide a specified satisfaction to all members of society who have a
stake in the organisation. The performance so achieved (as output) is the result of acquisition,
deployment and efficient use of resources in a rationally acceptable norm. Emphasis is on
achievement of goals related to a system within the constraints of the resources available.
Productivity measurement by PO-P approach consists of the following steps:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Identification of sub-systems
Identification of Key Performance areas (KPAs) in each of the sub systems
Setting of performance objectives
Ranking and weighting of sub-systems, KP As and performance objectives
Determination of objectivated output
Calculation of productivity index and identification of sub-systems, KPAs with low
performance.

Identification of sub-systems is the first step and a major exercise. Bums and, StaJker suggest
that a system (or a sub-system) has five basic characteristics:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

A central objective and measure of performance

Its environment
Its resources
Its components
Its management.

An organisation as a system can have functional sub-systems, such as a production sub-system, a

marketing sub-system, etc, as well as management subsystems, such as production subsystems,
management information sub-system, personnel management sub-system, etc. These subsystems may be also embedded in other sub-systems.
KPAs as in MBO, deal with positive performance and areas where the management is interested
that results be the most performing. McConkey recommends that KPA (Key Result Areas as
called by McConkey) can be in one or more of the following categories:

Quantity, such as revenue/production levels,

Quality, such as customer satisfaction, product quality,
Timeliness, such as scheduling and customer demands,
Cost, such as cost of services and manufacturing cost levels.

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While identifying KP As, two more considerations are vital. Firstly, identified KP As should be
those which are associated with the sub-system effectively. There are bound to be overlaps and
some areas would appear to be belonging to more than one sub-system. However, it is the subsystem that controls the development of inputs and has the responsibility of function/objectives
that the KP A should belong to. Secondly, KP A should have basis and relevance to
Organisational objectives. As Organisational objectives can vary from one organisation to
another, so should the importance of each of the KPA vary? Business budgets, planning and
product strategies of the sub-system have priority over the operational responsibilities of the
KPA. A KPA must subordinate to the sub-system.

7.8.2 The TOPP System

TOPP is a new performance measurement system, which was developed by SINTEF in Norway
in partnership with Norwegian Institute of Technology (NIH) and the Norwegian Federation
Engineering Industries (TBL).
TOPP is a questionnaire that is used to determine how an enterprise is performing in all the areas
of manufacturing (SINTEF 1992). The TOPP system views performance measurement along
three dimensions. These are:
1. Effectiveness - satisfaction of customer needs
2. Efficiency -- economic and optimal use of enterprise resources
3. Ability to change - strategic awareness to handle changes.
The answer to each question is qualitative (i.e. on scale. of I to 7, where 1 is poor and 7 is
excellent.) Enterprises are requested to answer each question for their status today and for their
expected status 2 years hence. They are also requested to rate how important each question is to
enterprise competititiveness on a three letter scale, where N = no importance M = medium
importance and G = great importance.
The TOPP system is very large and very time-consuming to fill. It is over 60 pages long and
there are about 15-20 questions on each page. Each question also requires three ratings.(status
today, future status and relative importance). Therefore, in total about 3,000 assessments need to
be made to fill out one complete questionnaire.
The TOPP system is a generic questionnaire and, therefore, the predominance measures in the
TOPP questions are not directly related to the strategy or customer requirements of enterprises.
The TOPP questionnaire is qualitative, based on the views of individuals not on actual
measurement and, therefore, answers can bias. The TOPP questionnaire is very through and
makes enterprises think about areas of manufacturing they may not have thought important
before. Anything that the enterprise measures, it will want to improve, especially predominance
areas that are market with 'G' (i.e. great importance).

7.8.3 The AMBITE System

The AMBITE (Advance Manufacturing Business Implementation Tool for Europe) is modem
performance measurement system (Bradley 1996). The objective of this framework is to develop
a technique that senior management can use to assess the impact of strategic decisions made by

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their enterprise. The framework provides a means of translating the business plan of the
enterprise (i.e. critical success factors) into set performance measures. The performance measure
will be directly related to the strategy of the enterprise and will also be process-oriented. The
AMBITE framework uses the business model, shown in Figure 7.6, to describe a manufacture
enterprise.

Figure 7.6: The AMBITE Performance

Each of the five macro-business processes (customer order fulfillment, vendor supply, design
coordination, co-engineering and manufacturing) in Figure 1 is mapped on to measures of
performance (time, cost, quality, flexibility and the environment). This is done for the make-tostock (MTS), assemble-to-order (ATO), make-to-order (MTO), and engineer-to-order (ETO)
manufacturing environments, a typology described by McMahon and Brown (1993). This is
napping produces the AMBITE performance measurement framework shown in Figure 7.7.

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Figure 7.7: The AMBITE Performance Measurement Framework

Mapping the five macro-business processes to the five macro measures of performance
indicators (SPIs) for each manufacturing typology. The AMBITE method takes a critical success
factor (CSF) of an enterprise and maps it on to the AMBITE framework. The performance
indicators can then be broken down into many lower-level performance indicators. The precise
breakdown of each performance indicators will be different for every enterprise, thus producing
a unique set of customized performance indicators.
The AMBITE performance measurement framework is complete in that, once an enterprise
knows its CSF, it should not be too difficult to develop a consistent set of performance indicators
for that enterprise that are directly related to the CSF. It is a process-oriented, generic framework
and, therefore, it can be applied to almost any enterprise that uses the frame work.
Apart from the three performance measurement systems (PO-P, TOPP and AMBITE) described
above, there are some other performance measurement systems available for use by World-Class
manufacturing companies also.

7.8.4 Quality Performance

Companies throughout the world are now recognizing the need for dramatic improvements in
their manufacturing operations. Some experts contend that quality is the only important aspect of
World-Class manufacturing-that all the other techniques are merely the application of ideas of
total quality control. The success of many major Japanese companies is truly rooted in their longterm commitment to the improvement of quality. The techniques taught by Deming and others
provide no 'quick fixes' for the improvement of quality because they stress that quality is
improved by the long-term application of continuous improvement. There are several approaches

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to the definition of quality, Philips Crosby in his popular Book 'Quality Is Free', asserts that
quality is conformance to requirements. Another pioneer in this field, J.M. Juran, takes a
different view, Dr Juran's definition of quality centres around 'fitness of use'. Robert W. Grenier
takes the view that quality can only be defined in terms of customer satisfaction: it must be the
goal that drives the total quality assurance system. Within the context of manufacturing, the
definition of quality would include the following factors (Maskell 1991):

Form: All dimensions, appearance and configuration of manufactured product must meet
prescribed requirements.
Fit: The features of the product must be applicable to its use, including proper function,
interchangeability, consistent geometry, and so on. . Function: The product performs as it
is designed to and marks customer.
Reliability: The product item functions according to expectation over a reasonable
lifetime. The probability of its functioning for a longtime is high.
Consistency: Every product has the same properties, functions and performance.
Customers can expect consistent service from each product.

The objective of quality measure is to achieve zero defects through production quality and
materials quality.
While production quality can be achieved by achieving zero defects, i.e. to eliminate any
variation in the production process through statistical process controls (SPC). The traditional
approach to quality inspection is to inspect each product after it is made. Statistical process
control allows quality problems to be identified and corrected continuously throughout the
production process. It will be worth mentioning here that many companies have implemented
SPC for the purpose of monitoring quality but have not used the techniques as a guide for
continues improvement. In world Class manufacturing, the purpose of using SPC is to facilitate
improvement.
Similarly, quality of incoming materials is very important. The measurement of quality of
incoming material is the index of vendor quality. If a number of rejects are reported for
incoming materials, the vendor should be asked to achieve zero detect supply in quality. A
World Class manufacture is typically very concerned about value-added activities. The
inspection of incoming materials is a non value added activities and does not improve
performance of any vendor is a key measure used by most World Class manufacturer. On time
deliveries have always been important because early deliveries build inventory and late
deliveries cause production disruption and wasteful activities.
Cost of Quality: To overcome the above indifference to quality improvement, quality
advocates have devised a financial approach to draw the attention of senior and financially
oriented managers. The cost of quality approach collects all costs currently being spent on
preventing detects and fixing them after they occur. The cost of quality, also called cost of non
conformance, attempts to compute a single aggregate measure of all the explicit costs
attributable to producing a product that is not within specifications. The cost of non
conformance can be classified into four categories.

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Prevention: The costs of designing, implementing and maintaining an active quality assurance
and control system, include the cost of designing and process engineering quality control system
quality planning and quality training.
Appraisal: The cost of ensuring that materials and products meet quality conformance
standards includes the costs of inspecting raw materials and purchased parts, inspecting inprocess and finished products, laboratory tests, quality audits and field tests.
Internal failure: The costs of manufacturing losses from materials and products that do not
meet quality standards, includes the costs of scrap, repair, rework, upgrade, down time and
discounts on sales of sub-standard parts and materials.
External failure: The cost of shipping inferior quality products to customers includes the
costs of handling customer complaints and claims, warranty and replacement costs, and
freight and repairs of returned merchandise.
The goal of a cost of quality measurement is to identify how much the organisation is
currently spending on quality. Most companies are surprised to learn that they are spending
between 15 and 20 per cent of sales revenues on quality related costs. Crosby gives a thumb
rule that the cost of quality should not exceed 2.5 per cent of a company's revenue.

7.8.5 Cycle Time

Today's and tomorrow's success are increasingly dependent on providing the most value at the
lowest cost in the least amount of time. Doing things faster is becoming as important as doing
them better and cheaper. Time has emerged as a dominant dimension of global competition,
fundamentally changing the way organisations compete. Time-based competitors are changing
the rules by developing re-engineering processes that are simpler, faster and have World-Class
quality (Black Burn 1991). Just as quality was the weapon and choice in 1980s, speed has
become one of todays most important elements for achieving competitive superiority. Cycle
time is the commonly used measure of speed (Harbour 1996).
Cycle time is one of the crucial issues of just-in-time manufacturing. The measurement of cycle
time is a primary feature of performance measurement for World-Class manufacturing. A study
conducted in early 1980s sought to test by simulation the effect of changing various aspects of
the manufacturing process, concluded that the most significant benefits were achieved by
reducing the lot size and Ideally speaking, cycle time would consist entirely value-added
activities, i.e. there are no queues, no waiting time or no value-added activity. If cycle time is
long, chances are that there may be high WIP inventories and manufacturing systems are
inflexible. The reduction of waste elimination of non-value-added activity and reduction cycle
times is a continuous quest for World-Class manufacturing. While talking on cycle time, Maskell
(1991) suggested the following measures of process time:

Manufacturing cycle time

DIP ratio (Delivery lead time and production lead time ratio)
Set-up time
Material availability
143

Distance of materials movement during production

Machine up time
Customer service time

Maskell suggests four primary methods of measuring cycle time:

1. Detailed recording of cycle time
2. Analysis of engineering routine
3. Sampling
4. Pragmatic
Detailed Recording of Cycle Time: Recording cycle time in detail for each product and each
schedule will provide accurate measures of product cycle. Appropriate techniques (work
measurement) may be used to arrive at time standards for identified, critical, disputed and new
operations in each manufacturing department. Based on the time standards, lines can be balanced
with a view to optimise productivity and rationalise cycle time. Some companies employ a
simple technique of manually tracking cycle times. The schedules, kanbans, or orders are time
stamped when they are released to the shop floor and then time stamped again in the final
assembly or often packaging and dispatch department. Traditional management accounting was
developed during the industrial revolution and the early part of the twentieth century. The
techniques of management accounting have not significantly. Changed since the 1930s when
industry-wide standards were adopt. Enormous changes have however, taken place in technology
and production techniques, and the old styles of management accounting is no longer useful.

7.8.6 Delivery Performance and Customer Service

What is essential for companies pursuing a strategy of operational excellence to achieve low
cost, delivering goods on time is the essence of just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing. Doing many
things right in a manufacturing plant is not easy. Traditionally, most companies have done many
things wrong most of the time and have been compensated for the problems of holding large
inventories by panic expediting and by continuous fire- fighting. All these activities are highly
wasteful and are the opposite of World-Class manufacturing goods. AJIT environment follows
these sequences of events (Maskell 1991):

Place orders with vendors for the right raw materials and components in the right
quantities.
Deliver orders on time and in correct quantities.
Schedule the shop flow correctly in accordance with customer needs.
Maintain the schedule of each production cell.
Deliver the correct product' and quantities to the customers on time.
Each of these areas of activity can be assessed with an appropriate performance measure.

Vendor Delivery Performance: There are two key issues related to vendor deliveries delivery
performance and vendor quality. On-time deliveries have always been important because early
deliveries build inventory and late deliveries cause production disruption and wasteful expediting
activities. Some companies embark on JIT by immediately trying to lure suppliers into providing
JIT deliveries. Vendor delivery performance can be measured using the following performance
144

measures:

Vendor Rating Index

Inactive Vendor Index
Annual Rate Contract Vendor Index
Vendor on Time Payment Index
Vendor Credit Index
Lost Vendor Index
Vendor Relationship Index

A vendor who is consistently late can actually be preferable to a vendor whose deliveries are
erratic. Vendor performance may be depicted in a form of vendor delivery performance report,
vendor delivery performance graph and spread charts.
Schedule Adherence: JIT manufacturing relies on all production tasks being completed on time
and on schedule. The concept of synchronized manufacturing assumes strict adherence to
schedules so that there is no queuing or unplanned waiting at any work centre. A World-Class
manufacturer stresses the continuous reduction of cycle times and inventories. This can be
achieved by elimination of variation in the product and in the process.
Order Changes and Schedule Changes: The effectiveness of production planning and control
can be assessed by addressing the number of changes required in the order placed by the system.
There are three basic types of orders; purchase orders, production orders and customer orders.
Each of these orders defines when to buy or make a product and how much of the product is
needed. A customer order will result in production schedule or work-order on the shop floor.
These final assembly orders spawn production orders for sub-assemblies and components, in turn
creating a requirement for purchase orders of raw materials and components. If the production
planning and control system requires a large number of changes to these orders, in addition to the
wasted activity of processing the changes in the plant, there is quite likely to be a considerable
waste in terms of inventory, production, queries and unfulfilled orders.
The number of changes to customer orders, purchase orders, and the production schedule is a
leading indicator of future delivery problems. The true cost of making order changes is very high
and the entire process is always a non-value-added activity. Many of improvements that are
introduced as a part of JIT and WCM will result in a reduction of the number of order changes.
The measurement of how these orders and schedule changes reduce is a good way to monitor the
success of different improvement activities.
Customer Service Level: A world Class manufacturer puts customers needs on the top of his
agenda. The idea of being close to customer is an important on for any company attempting to
compare against global competition. Customer service is the collection of activates performed in
filing orders and keeping a customer happy, or creating in the customers mind the perception of
an organisation that s easy to do business with . It is an excellent competition weapon arid has a
special advantage over price competition. There are two primary methods of looking at customer
service the first is quantitative approach, the second. The quantitative approach is the more
traditional method of calculating customer service level by comparing the orders placed by
145

customers with the shipment to those customers. The qualitative approach is concerned with
customers' perception of the service they are receiving. The key question that needs to be
answered by any company seeking its customer's satisfaction is 'are we delivering the right
products, the right quantities, and on the right date?' Customers deserve a 100 per cent level of
service and if they do not get this from one company, they will go to another.
The primary problems are long lead times (manufacturing, administrative and distribution), poor
quality, unreliable deliveries and poor logistics. These issues are addressed by a World-Class
manufacturing approach and are prime targets for a continuous improvement endeavor. Some of
the performance measures for service level may be the following:

Customer Satisfaction Index

Customer Complaint
Average Customer Response Time
Order to Delivery Cycle Time

7.8.7 Financial Performance Measures

Traditional financial measures have become invalid measures of performance and often send
misleading signals to the management. Many of these measures are actually counterproductive
because they modify behaviour in such a way that leads to increase inventory, the creation of
cost elsewhere in the value chain, increased levels of complexity, required resources, and quality
problems. Further, short-term financial performance measures have undermined by changes in
technology, the advance of manufacturing process changes and new ways to view the
organisation.
Thus, performance measures should assist the cost reduction effort by focusing on the significant
activity levels and measuring the drivers of activities. In fact, activities are the focal point of total
cost management (TCM). Process value analysis (PV A) is the initial building block of TCM and
facilitates the development of performance measures based on activity based costing. It focuses
on meeting customer requirements, minimizing cost and cycle time and improving the quality of
output.
PVA relates activities to the events, circumstances, or conditions that drive the need for activity
and resources consumed. These cost drivers are targeted for elimination/minimization if they
related to non-value added and optimization if they relate to value added. Activities consume
resources (cost) at a process level. Products consume activities in varying degrees based largely
on their level of differentiation. Accordingly to activity based costing theory, most support costs
do not vary directly with labour volume but with product diversity and operation complexity
(Figure 7.8). '

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Figure 7.8: Integrating Activity Accounting System

7.8.8 The Balanced Score Card

Most of the performances measures described so far are limited to measuring manufacturing
operations only and only some of them measure customer service. However, in the information
age, there is a need for a performance measurement system that gives top managers a fast but
comprehensive view of the entire business, not merely its manufacturing operations. The
balanced score card (BSC) is such a measurement system, which includes financial measures
(which tell the results of actions already taken) and complements them with operational
measures on customer satisfaction, internal processes and the organisation's innovation and
improvement activities.
Though the BSC gives information from four different perspectives, it limits the number of
measure to avoid information overload. Secondly the BSC guards against sub-optimization by
forcing senior managers to consider all the important operational measures together. This enables
them to see whether improvement in one area may have been achieved at the expense of another.
This is possible because the best objectives can also be achieved badly. For instance, a company
can reduce time-to-market in two very different ways: by improving the management of new
product introductions or by releasing only products that are incrementally different from existing
products.

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In order to apply the BSC framework, companies should articulate goals for time, quality,
performance and service, and then translate these goals into specific measures. For example,
Tables 7.1 to 7.4 show the BSC at the Electronic Circuits Inc. (Kaplan and Norton 1995).
Table 7.1
Financial Perspective
Goals
Measures
Survive
Cash flow
Succeed

Prosper

Goals
New
Product

Quarterly sales growth and

operating income by
division
Increased market share and
ROE

Table 7.2
Customer Perspective
Measures
Per cent of sales from new
products
Per cent of sales from
proprietary products.

Responsive
supply

On-time delivery
(defined by customer)

Preferred
supplier

Share of key accounts'

Purchases
Ranking by key accounts

Customer
partnership

Number of cooperative
engineering efforts

Table 7.3
Internal Business Perspective
Goals
Measures
Technology
Manufacturing geometry
capability
versus competition

Table 7.4
Innovation and Learning Perspective
Goals
Measures
Technology
Time-to-develop next
leadership
generation

Manufacturing
excellence

Cycle time
Unit cost
Yield

Manufacturing
learning

Process time to
maturity

Design
productivity

Silicon efficiency
Engineering efficiency

Product
focus

Percentage of products
that equal 80% sales

Time-tomarket

New product
introduction versus
competition

New
product
introduction

Actual introduction
schedule versus
plan

148

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.9 CONCLUSION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Indian manufacturing industry has been thrust from the protected environment of the 'licence permit- quota raj' to an uncertain environment of global competition in a very short period.
Though industry has risen to challenge, its battle for survival and growth has just begun. Many
manufacturing companies are barely surviving. Many may not compete successfully with the
increasing sophistication of their global competitors. These global competitors are the companies
who excel in their manufacturing operations due to their successful deployment of IT in
manufacturing; It is, therefore, extremely important that Indian manufacturers start planning for
global competitiveness through better exploitation of manufacturing and information
technologies. This chapter describes such a planning approach which may be customized for a
specific company.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
8.1 Manufacturing Strategy: Futile Search for an Elusive Link
8.2 The Manufacturing Strategic Intent Classification
8.3 Translating Intent into Action
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.1

MANUFACTURING STRATEGY: FUTILE SEARCH FOR AN

ELUSIVE LINK

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The subject study of manufacturing strategy came into being due to Skinner (1969). Today,
manufacturing strategy remains a hot research topic. However, the impact on manufacturing of
writing on manufacturing strategy has been minimal. The basic reason for this has been that this
research was typically 'ivory tower' research. While Western gurus of operations management
pontificated on frameworks to link manufacturing strategy with corporate strategy, the WorldClass manufacturing revolution actually linked manufacturing to the market by eliminating waste
and shortening lead times. Skinner deplored the dominance of specialists in the manufacturing
function. He wrote that:
Manufacturing is generally perceived in the wrong way at the top, managed in the wrong way at
the plant level, and taught in the wrong way in business schools. As long as a technical point of
view dominates manufacturing decisions, a degree of isolation from the realities of competition
is inevitable. Top management can manage manufacturing if it will engage in the making of
manufacturing policy, rather than considering it a kind of fifth, independent estate beyond the
pale of control. The place to start is with the acceptance of a theory of manufacturing, which
begins with the concept that in any system design there are significant trade-offs.
An example of such a trade-off was: 'Should it minimize lead time or minimize inventories? A
company cannot do both.'
Skinner (1974) proposed three basic concepts of a 'focused factory':

There are many ways to compete besides producing at low cost.

A factory cannot perform well on every yardstick.
Simplicity and repetition breed competence.

While the first and the third of are eminently acceptable today, the second concept-the
cornerstone of Skinner's writing-is hopelessly wrong. In Skinner's view, 'sub trade-offs as costs
versus quality or abort delivery cyc1es versus low inventory investment are fairly obvious.'
Today, this view would be considered outrageous! The concept that costs can decrease as quality
increases is also universally accepted today.
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The only factory with a future is one which does perform well on every yardstick. As Womack et
al. (1990) have noted, lean production (World-class manufacturing) 'uses less of everything
compared with mass production-half the human effort in the factory, half the manufacturing
space, lf the investment in tools, half the engineering hours to develop a new product in half the
time. Hill (1995) has presented the following five-step framework for manufacturing strategy
formulation:

Step 1: Define corporate objectives

Step 2: Determine marketing strategies to meet these objectives
Step 3: Assess how different products qualify in their respective markets ld win orders
against competitors
Step 4: Establish the most appropriate process to manufacture these products
Step 5: Provide the manufacturing infrastructure (e.g. manufacturing planning and control
systems, QA systems, etc.) to support production

The critical step in this framework is Step 3, in which marketing personnel clearly define how
products actually compete in their markets by identifying:

Qualifiers: 'Criteria that a company must meet for a customer even to consider it a
possible supplier.'
Order-winners: 'Those criteria that win the order.'
The explicit identification of qualifiers and order-winners enables manufacturing
personnel to study their' implications for manufacturing process infrastructure. They can
then provide feedback on investments and time-periods to top management and this
feedback links manufacturing to corporate strategy.

Unfortunately, the harsh realities of the market do not always permit an elegant and laid back
approach to manufacturing strategy. The truth is that in a competitive market, the order-winners
are likely to be dynamic. Also, as Hill himself notes, the order-winners may include factors such
as after-sales service or being the existing supplier, which are not within the jurisdiction of
manufacturing. Hayes and Pisano (1994) have summed up the problems afflicting the literature
on manufacturing strategy succinctly:
In a stable environment, competitive strategy is about staking out a position and manufacturing
strategy focuses on getting better at the things necessary to defend that position. In turbulent
environments, however, the goal of strategy becomes strategic flexibility. Being World is not
enough; a company also has to have the capability to switch gears-from, for example, rapid
product development to low cost relatively quickly and with minimal resources. The job of
manufacturing is to provide that capability.
Twenty-five years after Skinner wrote his seminal article, the top strategic objective for
manufacturing managers in Europe and the US was 'linking manufacturing strategy with
corporate strategy'. In Japan, on the contrary, the top strategic objective was faster new product
development'. We find it highly unlikely that practitioners of manufacturing management in
Japan did not realize the importance" of manufacturing strategy in 1994. The lower ranking is
probably attributable to the fact that they had already linked manufacturing and corporate
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strategy. Consider, for example, this description by Womack et al. of a cross-functional

management practice at Toyota (1990): The dealer became part of the production system as
Toyota gradually stopped building cars in advance for unknown buyers and converted to a buildto-order system in which the dealer was the first step in the kanban system, sending orders for
pre sold cars to the factory for delivery to specific customers in two or three weeks. To make this
workable, however, the dealer had to work closely with the factory to sequence orders in a way
that the factory could accommodate. While Ohno's system was remarkably adept at building
products to specific orders, it could not deal with large surges or troughs in total demand or
abrupt shifts in demand between products that could not be built with the same tools-for
example, between the largest and smallest cars in the product range or between cars and trucks.
Sequencing orders was possible in turn because Toyota's sales staff did not wait in the
showrooms for orders. Instead, they went directly to customers by making house calls. When
demand began to droop they worked more hours, and when demand shifted, they concentrated on
the households they knew were likely to want the type of car the factory could build.
The latter was possible because of a massive database on households and their buying
preferences that Toyota gradually built up on every household ever showing interest in a Toyota
product. With this information in hand, Toyota sales staff could target their efforts to the most
likely buyers.
This is a far cry from the usual scenario in which marketing gets as many orders as it can and
manufacturing is told to meet the demand. Here, firstly, the manufacturing function builds up
World-Class manufacturing capabilities. Secondly, top management ensures that the
organization uses these capabilities to succeed in the market place through cross-functional
management. The world of manufacturing cannot be reduced to simple trade-offs, four-field
charts or neat diagrams. But, the basics of World Class manufacturing are simple. The role of top
management is to provide an environment in which these basics are implemented at the
workplace. Successful manufacturing strategy is built on the sound foundations of World-Class
manufacturing which makes the supply chain more responsive to the felt needs of the customer.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.2 THE MANUFACTURING STRATEGIC INTENT CLASSIFICATION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Earlier we have compared the manufacturing objectives of the participant organizations with
those of World-Class manufacturers using a two-way classification, which we called the
manufacturing strategic intent (MANSI) grid. This compares the manufacturing objectives on
two dimensions-to be an agile manufacturer, or to be a conventional manufacturer (stressing
capacity utilization). This classification has two inherent assumptions:

The stated objectives of the respondents are actually the strategic objectives of the
responding companies
The practices of the responding companies reflect their stated objectives.

In spite of these limitations, we felt that the MANSI grid would be a useful diagnostic tool for a
company trying to assess itself honestly on strategic intent. Manufacturers will have to achieve
World-Class manufacturing status to compete effectively in the global market. Therefore, World-

152

Class manufacturers emphasis agile objectives and deemphasize capacity utilization. This
classification places a manufacturer into one of the following four types (Figure 8.1):

World-Class players: Companies that have the potential to be World Class. These are
those which rated agile objectives above 3 and capacity utilization below or equal to 3 on
the 5-point scale.
Transitional players: Companies that rated both agile objectives and capacity utilization
above 3. These are companies that can make the transition to World-Class players.
License-regime survivors: Companies that rated agile objectives below or equal to 3 and
capacity utilization above 3. These companies continue to operate with objectives that
would have led to success before the liberalization of the economy.
Inertia players: Companies that rated both objectives below 3 are surviving on inertia.
The reasons for their survival could include a monopolistic or oligopolistic market.

Agile Objectives Rating

As we would in any emerging market the largest chunk of the responding companies is in the
transitional players' quadrant. This signifies an industry in transition. Having the right objectives
may not always lead to superior performance. However, operating without these objectives is
virtually guaranteed to lead to competitive disadvantage. The companies that are in the MANSI
World-Class players' quadrant have, therefore, achieved a necessary, but not a sufficient
condition.

World Class Players 10%

Companies

Transitional Players
86% Companies

Inertia Players 0%
Companies

License Regime
Survivors 4%
Companies

Low

High

Capacity Utilization Rating

Figure 6.1: MANSI Classification of Responding Companies
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.3 TRANSLATING INTENT INTO ACTION

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In the MANSI grid, transitional players are those who, perhaps due to cultural inertia, have not
been able to surrender capacity utilization practices, but have at least the intent to adopt agile
153

objectives. Therefore, for the transitional players, the challenge is to start adopting practices,
which are aligned with their strategic intent. Thus, what they need is a change in their mindset.
As a prerequisite to changing mindset, a deep understanding of 'World Class' is necessary so that
it may not appear that it is a status that cannot be achieved. World-Class means being able to
compete credibly with the best anywhere. First of all, many of the World-Class companies are
not World class in financial terms, but have reached that status by satisfying a lot of customers.
Thus, it is important to know what makes companies world class through the following (Drenen
and Pennington 1999)

Quality of the product or service:

Does the product or service fulfill all the
requirements it promised?
Value for money: Is the value perceived by the customer after the sale as they were
before.
Service: Is the company as concerned to help the customer after the sale as they were
before?
Reliability: Whether the delivery will be on time? Whether the delivery will be on
time? Whether the product will actually prove to be reliable in practice? Is the quality
of the product or service consistent?
Innovation: To stay at World -class strengths and work on them until standard means
constant change and innovation. In product service, always trying to produce something
that beats the customers expectations.

Moreover, World-Class performers are not marvelous at everything. They choose by

concentrating on their Strengths and work on them until they can compete with the best in the
world. For a company to judge its strengths and weaknesses, the best way is to have a formal
measurement based assessment programmes. Measurement is a critical component of any
management system, and since 'seeing is believing', it is also instrumental in changing the
mindset. The Balanced Score-Card, as described before, is a proven approach to strategic
management that imbeds the long-term strategy into the management system through the
mechanism of measurement. The Balanced Score-Card translates vision and strategy into a tool
that effectively communicates strategic intent and motivates and tracks performance against the
established goals
An effective Balanced Score-Card is, however, more than a limited list of measures gathered into
four categories. A good Balanced Score-Card should tell the story of the company's strategy.
Therefore, three criteria help determine if the performance measures do; in fact, tell the story of
the Companys strategy. Score-Card should be part of a chain of cause and effect relationships
that represent the' strategy.

Performance drivers: Measures common to most companies within an industry are

known as 'lag indicators'. Examples include market share or customer retention. The
drivers of performance ('lead indicators') tend to be unique because they reflect what is
different about the strategy. A Balanced Score-Card should have a mix of lead and lag
indicators.
Linked to financials: With the proliferation of change programmes underway in most
154

companies today, it is easy to become preoccupied with a goal such as quality, customer
satisfaction or innovation. While these goals are frequently strategic, they also must
translate into measures that are ultimately linked to financial indicators.
Building a Balanced Score-Card is a good method to choose what the company wants to be best
at. What the company wants to concentrate on? Market share? Operating efficiency? Customer
service? Given below is a list of performance measures used by real World-Class companies
around the world. They are divided into five categories, and could be used in the Balanced
Score-Card exercise.
Customers:

Order to delivery time/waiting time

Right first time; service and product.
On-time in full delivery
Customer Complaints
Speed Of Problem Resolution
Phone Response Time
Letter Response Time
Customer Satisfaction Survey Scores

Employee:

Sales per employee

Profit per Employee
Absence
Staff Turnover
Employee Satisfaction Survey Scores

Financial Performance:

Return On Capital\ Assets

Profit Percentage On Sales
Investor Returns
Share Price
Unit Costs

Market Performance:

Market Share
Product Innovation
Sales Growth

155

Internal Efficiency:

Sales per Square foot

Profit per square foot
Added value time versus process cycle time
Standard hours versus attendant hours
Stock turns
Overall machinery efficiency
Costs of quality
Inspection cost delays
Re work
Scrap
Customers returns
Costs
Penalty costs
Time to market

Once the measurement system is embedded within the management system, the company knows
exactly where it stands in terms of its intent and where it has to reach. But how does a company
achieve the World Class performance? In an assessment of the insurance industry, it was
observed that World-Class companies grow faster than average or poor ones, and new employees
perform better in such companies, regardless of their aptitude. An assessment of other industries
would probably yield the same results. Therefore, the next important thing to focus on is people;
mainly in terms of the organizational structure and culture.
Turning to Organizational structure, traditionally there have been as many as 14 to 15 levels of
management between the CEO and the least skilled worker on the shop floor. In the future, in
World-Class manufacturing facilities, this hierarchy may be reduced to 6 to 12 levels as more
and more functions become integrated. Similarly, the job scope of the workers who remain on
the shop floor will be wider. They will have a much greater understanding of the big picture of
manufacturing. Their task will be to keep the large and complex WMC systems operational so
that the facility can maintain a profitably high return on assets.
Another important people related factor is the culture. Implementing WCM in most companies is
a 5-10 year effort to change the technological basis as well as the culture or ethos. An important
part of the change that must take place within the company is a change in attitude of all the
employees. The following list shows how many of the attitudes that prevail within most
manufacturing companies today must change in future.
One theme that dominates top management's thinking is that the barriers to the implementation
of WCM are primarily technical. Managers believe they lack all the necessary technology to
implement the 'factory of the future'. However, in reality, it has not been found to be true. While
it is technically true that no one can buy or has a complete CIM or WCM system, it is possible to
get 80 to 90 per cent of the way there with the technology available today. Yet, most companies
have not gone even 10 per centre of the WCM way, and there is plenty of technology left for
them to utilize. In fact, the major impediment to the implementation of WCM is people, their
156

lack of knowledge, their resistance to change, or simply their lack of ability to quickly absorb the
vast multitude of new technologies, philosophies, ideas and practices that have come about in
manufacturing over the last few decades. Only education and training can solve this problem.
Managers often take a myopic view of what their employees need to know. The broader the
understandings that people have of the total aspects of running a business, however, the greater
the benefit to the company.
Table 8.1: Required Attitude Change for WCM
From
Little boxes (fragmented view)
Complacency
Manufacturing at cost centre
Top Management as a roadblock
Inventory as an asset
It is not my job
Serial vertical communication in organization
Just meet the goal save some for the next time
I am not allowed to.
Not invented here
Do it ourselves
Planning is no good and needed here

To
The big facture (holistic view)
Competitiveness
Manufacturing as a strategic resources
Top management a leader
Inventory as a liability
It is everyones job
Open horizontal and vertical communication
Improve day by day
I am encouraged to.
Use if it works; learn from others
Buy it
Planning is useful; we must plan

Table 8.1: Required Attitude Change for WCM (Continued)

From
Number game
We know what is best for the customers
Computers are expenses
Data control and definitions are not important

To
Truth, accurate data and Information - no
filters
The customer is always right
Computers are competitive asset
Data is corporate resource, to be defines and
controlled effectively

Therefore, any good education and training programmes should address the following topics in
some part during training:

New Product development

Leadership
Motivation
Technology
Teamwork
Preventive maintenance

157

Planning
Quality
Project management. Innovation
Creativity

Lastly, in the information age, the effectiveness of managers and white-collar workers will be
critical to achieving World-class status. The effectiveness of these experts depends on their
smooth integration into the organization. However, in this era of advanced specialization,
integration from of dispersed knowledge will become more difficult to accomplish and more
costly to achieve. Knowledge will become scarce and the most crucial and expensive economic
resource. Imagine the impact on the performance of a company if: All the employees of the
company understood what their individual contribution to achieving the organizations vision
should be.
Management could pull together everything their employees know about the customers, and
competitors including anecdotal information on demand. The management was able to capture,
document and share all of the strategically critical information the employees have learned over
informal discussions. The top performing employees were able to look over the shoulders of the
entire workforce, constantly providing coaching, advice and guidance. Thus, it is being
increasingly recognized that the application of knowledge management is critical in creating this
environment, enabling companies to close the gap between current demands and the capacity of
organizations to continuously change to meet them. In short, collective learning and
communication are the foundation for growth.
Knowledge management goes beyond managing the information typically generated by
executing transactions and the data available in structured databases. It is the harnessing of a
companys collective expertise wherever it resides and the distribution of that expertise to the
right people at the right time. It is not a product but a process the process of gathering, managing
and sharing the employees knowledge capital.
To accomplish knowledge management requires investment. The business strategy of the
organization must acknowledge the requirement to capture knowledge and actively foster the
effort. Knowledge exists in people, not technology, and such will require a massive human
effort. Technology can help capture information, but it cannot create knowledge However, this
requires a systematic analysis and agreement amongst the firms' stakeholders on areas where
improvement is to be focused and how such improvements are to be measured. We suggest
formulation of strategic intent and developing a measurement system within the management
system by focusing on those specific areas that will make the firm truly a World-Class
performer. However, in order to drive this change, there are two key elements: people-the
Organizational structure, their culture and their educational skills; and the management of the
collective knowledge in the organization. A sustained focus on these elements with a continuous
improvement philosophy will certainly fulfill the firm's cherished dream of becoming a world
class manufacturer.

158

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CASE STUDIES
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Structure
9.1 Accelerated Fermentation process: Using World Class Enzymes
9.2 Birla Cellulosic Kharach
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.1 ACCELERATED FERMENTATION PROCESS: USING WORLD

CLASS ENZYMES
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------World Class Manufacturers are those that demonstrate industry best practice. To achieve these
companies should attempt to be best in the field at each of the competitive priorities (quality,
price, delivery speed, delivery reliability, flexibility and innovation). Organizations should
therefore aim to maximize performance in these areas in order to maximize competitiveness.
However, as resources are unlikely to allow improvement in all areas, organizations should
concentrate on maintaining performance in 'qualifying' factors and improving 'competitive edge'
factors.
Though costs will still be monitored and controlled it must be ensured that cost reduction does
not remain the overriding priority, as is often currently the case. Organizations should give
attention to all of the priorities as stated in the definition of World Class Manufacturing and
concentrate on your SWOT .You need to be selective about what you improve.
Control of operations: Before commencing implementation of control systems there are always
five beneficial things to do which will make any method of control easier to implement and make
the system work better operationally: (Generally world class manufacturing businesses have
done these things).
Reduce time wasted in setting and reduce set up times: Particularly true for Period Batch
Control because the technique requires every part to be made every period, but it is beneficial in
all circumstances to reduce batch sizes by reducing set up times on the bottleneck processes.
There is little extra benefit in reducing set up times on non-bottleneck processes. The technique
"Single Minute Exchange of Die" or "SMED" provided a structured approach to doing this.
Form Natural Groups (cells): The processes are divided into groups of families of products or
services using Group Technology. This technique was later to be reborn as cellular
manufacturing. The technique can be applied wholly or partially, i.e. to the whole of the factory
or to part of it (usually the runners) and is always beneficial except in pure job shops where
product family cells are unstable.
Reduce throughput times: By far the easiest way of reducing throughput times is to reduce
Work in Process (WIP). It may be fat and comfortable for the production supervisors to keep lots
of Work in Progress, but using the simple analogy:
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If it takes two men a week to dig two holes how long does it take two men to dig one hole?
Answer: Twice as quick
By the same token if there is less WIP, what is in process can be focused on and move more
quickly. Typical results of starving the issue of work until a resource is available to work on it
are halving of WIP and manufacturing lead-times at a stroke with no loss in output.
Secondly by only completing parts when they are required to be dispatched and invoiced, WIP
tends to only contain parts which are required to be finished and are therefore not likely to be
overtaken by more urgent work and left behind in WIP or in finished stock.
There is almost never a case for sub-assembly stocks, unless there is very high commonality of
sub-assemblies and long sub-assembly lead-times. Whole-assembly kitting can reduce assembly
WIP by 50% against sub-assembly kitting and manufacture. Stocking sub-assemblies is almost
always an open invitation to rob kits and cannibalize built sub-assemblies for more urgent jobs
with corresponding total loss of stock control and rampant WIP.
Here we must raise three notes of caution:

It is possible that the variety of parts to be produced at short notice may actually result in
permanent changeovers and no output.
It is at this point that the accountant wants his cake and eats it. He wants less WIP but this
can represent less profit if profit is "earned" by producing WIP, and may also result in a
reduction in "labor utilization / efficiency", which actually does not matter unless labor is
the bottleneck.
There are also examples of increasing "TAKT Time" on the main assembly track by
whole-assembly kitting, so this technique needs to be judged against this possibility. In
particular this technique should be restricted to non-bottleneck workstations on assembly
tracks and sub-assemblies controlled via Kanban systems.

Other methods of reducing throughput time include:

1. Redistributing resources to work the bottleneck harder.
2. Close scheduling, but also includes "overlapping", i.e. starting op 2 on the first
component, before op 1 is finished on the last component of the batch, (reducing the
"transfer batch").
3. Reducing the number of operations per part by either combining operations to form one,
or including manual operations inspection or de-burring in the working cycle of
automatic machines.
Postpone product: If this technique is considered at the design stage, the mutation induced by
customer requirements can be deferred until the final operation rather than at an early
manufacturing stage. This makes sophisticated control of mass customization unnecessary. A
common example of this is packaging where it is often beneficial to stock unpacked items and
pack into customer livery to order. I.e. convert to assemble to order from make to order.

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A shorter-term possibility is to consider the trade off between lead-time and stock variety. This is
a method of reducing end product variety (SKU's) stocked by deliberately stocking common subassemblies instead of final assemblies. For example if there are common sub-assemblies it may
be possible to reduce the final assembly stock holding significantly by stocking instead the
common sub-assembly. If lead-time is a key selling success factor this may not be acceptable,
but if lead-time is not an order winning criteria it may be practical, to stock sub-assemblies.
Obviously if final assembly operation lead-times are short the technique is more readily
acceptable.
Another example from the smelting industry is the stocking of intermediate billet, which can be
quickly converted into final sizes.
Remove the trivial many, to focus on the vital few: Using Pareto Analysis increase batch sizes
of the low volume value "C" items and preferably employ "Supplier Top Up arrangements for
these. You do not want to run out of these! But why do you need them on the picking list?

Enzymes are proteins that catalyze chemical reactions. The Enzyme Commission of the
International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (formerly the International Union of
Biochemistry) classified enzymes into six main classes: oxidoreductases, transferases,
hydrolases, lyases, isomerases, and ligases (10). Based on the type of reaction catalyzed,
enzymes are assigned to one of these classes and given an Enzyme Commission (EC) number, a
systematic name, and a common name. Now let us discuss on the case study related to
Accelerated Fermentation process: Using World Class Enzymes
Production Method Changes in Feed Enzyme Manufacturing Flexibility through
Innovations
Petri Helo and Josu Takala
Division of Production Economics
Department of Production Economics and Computer Science
Faculty of Accounting and Industrial Management
University of Vaasa
PO BOX 700, FIN-65100 VAASA, Finland
Abstract: In spring 1997, a feed enzyme factory with the staff of 12, Finnfeeds International
Ltd. (FFI) introduced a new production method developed during the case study discussed in this
paper for a small high-tech company it is most important to prepare for market changes. With a
share of 60 percents of the world markets, FFI wanted to ensure the customer satisfaction in the
future too. The vigorous growing markets are demanding more differentiated products in lower
volumes and within shorter delivery times. The new production method FFI pioneering is
changing the principles of production control, whilst the company is moving from make-to-stock
manufacturing to assembly-to-order type procedures. The unique method makes not only the
lead-time of the production shorter and facilitates the estimation of demand required for worldclass competitiveness, but also consolidates the production quality as well. The FFI case shows
that through innovations a SME can obtain flexibility. Consequently, the research shows that it is
not impossible to "make to order" even in the process industry.

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Keywords: Flexibility, Production Control, Change, Innovations

Introduction: In spring 1997, the feed enzyme factory of 12 staff of Finnfeeds International Ltd.
(FFI) introduced a new production method. It is common knowledge that for a small high-tech
company it is most important to obtain flexibility for being prepared to market need changes.
The FFI case of production change is about this. Before describing the production change details,
a short review to feed enzyme businesses presented.
Enzymes are chemical particles that enable all living things from single celled organisms,
through plants and insects to animals and humans, to function. Enzymes are very important
factors in many biological processes. For instance, without enzymes, food cannot be digested and
biological reactions cannot take place. Enzymes have been used in the food and beverage
industry for many years to speed up biological processes. In feed the enzymes improve the
nutritive value and performance of poultry, pig and cattle diets offering producers a wide range
of benefits. The most significant attainments improved weight gain and feed efficiency of
standard diets can be achieved with the use of feed enzymes. At the same time, the feeding
costs will be reduced, whilst maintaining performance.
Use of feed enzymes has also environmental aspects. To take but a few examples, fewer carcass
downgrades, resulting from reduced litter problems will be achieved. Improved flock uniformity
leads to a more consistent sized bird and lower manure disposal costs. Reduced environmental
stress resulting from reduced litter volume and nitrogen and phosphorous excretion are also
important reasons for using feed enzymes.
Feed enzyme additives are manufactured in FFI production plant with a patented stabilization
process. FFI refines complex multi-enzyme feed additives from standard bulk enzymes. There
are different product lines for e.g. cattle, poultry, ruminant and fish. For each of these types there
are different products for each feed type, too. For instance, soybean based feed requires another
type additives than wheat or barley. There are also differences in feed factory apportion systems
too - for this reason there are liquid and dry products. The business emphasis is very much on
continuous product development to design new products for new purposes and increase market
share by this.
Product Mix and Production Control Methods: A large variety of products combined to short
lead-time requirements and long raw material time of delivery cause a problem for production
and operations control. Because of rather long processing times (compared to customer needs!)
the production control is based on sale forecasts. The final products cannot be bagged and
packed in forehand, whilst the products are shipped around the world with different labels,
instructions and guarantees. For this reason the forecasts can be used in production control for
only the major products and marketing areas. Small orders and orders to countries that are not in
the major market areas are most difficult to be handled. However, especially these orders would
require extreme flexibility. It takes approximately two months to get needed crude enzymes from
the suppliers, if there is no required raw material enough in the stock. In a situation of growing
markets, the number of products gets bigger all the time. On the other hand, crude enzymes are
living material that may deteriorate because of alteration. This phenomenon requires flexibility
from the production control system. The production control system in FFI plant was a make-to-

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stock type batch processing and production programme based application for the old batch
processing line. Only bigger batches and very urgent orders were processed "make-to-order".
This market driven demand of flexibility forced the company production team to seek new
control methods. P/OM literature traditionally deals with production flow changes that derive
from automobile industry or machine shops. The general interest has not been so much on
process industry. Reasons for this may be the minor routing possibilities and the fact that the
improvements are usually technological - like faster and more efficient production lines. Because
benchmarking the best practices in process industries would have been laborious, the examining
was started on very general level. The basic typology in literature includes following production
types:

Make-To-Stock
Make-To-Order
Assembly-to-Order
Engineer-To-Order
Capacity Selling

In theory, any of these types could be in shop or batch production as well in process industry.
The innovation was to try to perform a production type change from MTS to more customer need
driven production control. After developing, the idea took a shape of changing towards
assembly-to-order type production. The response to the need of more differentiated products in
lower volumes and within shorter delivery times could be fulfilled thereby. The control change
needed some modifications in production technology. The conclusion was to invest on a new
production line that could be able to stabilize high activity products. From a reserve of these
components the final products could be assembled in a short time.
Theoretical Analysis of Production Change: By analyzing the FFI's new production line in
point of view of process continuity, the line can be divided into two parts. Manufacturing of the
premix components is of continuous production type. For this kind of manufacturing long
continuous producing sequences are very typical. The greatest costs root to set-ups and starting
of the lines. Consequently it would be economical to produce as big batches as possible with this
kind of processes. The mixing part of the line presents interrupting, non-continuous production
or the production part that makes it possible to gain flexibility. The reason behind this is that
whilst changing the production control philosophy to assembly-to-order (ATO) method we'll
gain also the benefits of the assembling: the products compiled from different parts are
manufactured with principles of interrupting production. The "push" of Make-to-Stock (MTS)
and Make-To-Order (MTO) changes to "pull" style control. The answer to market requirements
of short lead times is carried out by ATO method. Changes in sales trends can be reacted by
adjusting the level and cycle time of premix inventory. In MTS production the orders are leaded
to final product stock, which means dependence on forecasts. Also the usefulness of material
requirement calculations gets better in ATO. The risk of manufacturing products too much in
forehand is smaller in case of components than in specialized final products.
When producing with MTO principle, the order signal is leaded to raw material inventories. The
lead time seen by the customer may be much longer than in MTS, if there is no needed raw

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material in the stock. The production change to ATO method makes one kind of synthesis to
MTO and MTS. The customer can see better flexibility, and at the same time the production
control becomes more clear and user friendly.

Figure 9.1: The difference between "Make to Stock" and "Make to Order" methods is in
the position of point of receiving orders.
Application: The new production line consists of two parts: premix component manufacturing the premix line - and the assembling part - the mixing line. This production method allows
producing almost all products from four enzyme premixes and wheat carrier.
The basic idea and philosophy of the new process, called premix - mixing line, is to produce kind
of semi finished products, components of which the final products are assembled.
A new line for premix manufacturing was needed to get higher enzyme activity concentrations.
The old production line couldn't reach as high targets on single enzymes. In the old batch
production line the finished product was manufactured from the beginning and there was no
modulation.

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Figure 9.2: "Assembly to Order" type production is kind of combination of the good
properties of MTS and MTO controlling methods
The lead-time was longer and the economic optimal quantity thus great. In the mixing production
line the product is manufactured by mixing preliminary compounds - premixes.
The deviation of the process is also smaller while the components are produced in bigger
quantities. In other words, it is possible to make about 90+ % of the total turnover by the new
method - with a shorter lead-time.
The production control change to ATO: The following benefits of group technology are
mentioned:

Short delivery times

Slight need of delivery
Stable routings
Smaller inventories in and
A chance to intensify transfers

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Figure 9.3: Comparison of the old line and mixing line. Semi finished components add one
stage to the process but consolidate the lead time observed by the customer.
Conclusions: The FFI case shows that through innovations an SME can obtain flexibility.
Consequently, it is not impossible to "make to order" even in the process industry. By using
component modulation and standardization, group technology type analysis. According to
Vnnen lead time affects directly to productivity Mathematically P (tlead.) = ...) A
Short lead time makes it possible to:

Obtain a clear production control

Fast deliveries and good customer service
Small inventories, especially on work in process and finished products

In shortening the lead times, it is very common to change the control principles to "pull" flow
control. A good example of this is JIT and lean manufacturing. A change to assembling is a little
different style of approach; even the effects resemble each other. The research in FFI case shows
that ATO method makes not only the lead-time of the production shorter and facilitates the
estimation of demand required for world-class competitiveness, but also consolidates the
production quality as well. As a general conclusion we can derive from the research that it is
possible to move towards market driven production control even in process industry. Production

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change to ATO may require changes in production technology, but the not as great as in
changing directly to fast MTO, if MTO would even be possible.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.2 BIRLA CELLULOSIC KHARACH

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------About the Company: Incorporated in August 25, 1947, Grasim Industries commenced
operations at Gwalior in central India in 1948, with a small rayon weaving unit using imported
rayon. In 1954, GRASIM set its focus on the production of rayon, a man-made fiber (Viscose
Staple Fiber). Birla Cellulosic, a producer of VSF, was commissioned on December 18, 1997, as
a unit of Grasim Industries Limited, the flagship company of the Aditya Birla Group. It is based
at Kharach in the state of Gujarat in western India. Cotton and VSF are the only two fibers in the
world, which are bio-degradable. The yield of VSF per acre of land is, however, about seven
times that of cotton. VSF is highly comfortable in humid as well as warm climates. It has
extensive application in hygiene and baby products, medical products and cleaning wipes. Birla
Cellulosic was the first company in Gujarat to get the Deming Prize in 2003.
Process of WCM/TQM Implementation: Birla Cellulosic divided its implementation of WCM
(World Class Manufacturing)/TQM processes into five distinct steps. These steps were evolved
to deploy various systems/process of implementing WCM/TQM. These steps are as follows:
Team formation: In this process, teams were formed at different levels (L1, L2 & L3), and
ownership of areas, equipment and members was assigned to enable effective Team Working.

Fig 9.4: Process of WCM/TQM Implementation

Equipping teams: One of the best ways of empowering people was to give them the power to
solve problems in their field of operation. By way of this process, each and every employee was
trained in Problem Solving tools through in-house workshops.

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Enliven Senses: As employees learnt to solve problems, it was necessary to make them aware of
problems that they would find at their work place. All employees were hence made aware of the
"Eight Types of Abnormalities", which were possible in an organizational milieu. Following this
training, problems started becoming apparent to employees, thereby improving their sense
faculties.
Competition: As employees developed the ability to find abnormalities in their work area, their
efforts needed to be focused on achieving results in business processes. For this purpose,
fourteen business processes called Key Manufacturing Focused Areas (KMFAs) were identified
and performance parameters in each were defined. Teams of various levels competed on these
performance parameters to give speed and purpose to abnormality identification and its removal.
This step involved complete management of all processes/KMFAs, like system development,
defining performance parameters, monitoring these parameters, reviewing the system and
aligning it with business objectives.
Recognition: Various team level and individual recognitions were instituted with a dual purpose.
In the first place, high performance when recognized set examples for others to see and replicate,
lending speed to excellence. Secondly, timely recognition of celebration further strengthened
teams to restart cycles of deployment.
Leadership and Employee Participation: Visionary leadership showed new ways of achieving
excellence to the whole organization, providing a role model for all the initiatives being
undertaken by the organization. For example, "no helpers at shop floor" is the culture of Birla
Cellulosic, which started with "no peons for top most executives". Senior executives frequently
visited customers to understand their requirements and problems, and made additional efforts to
resolve them. They encouraged all employees to visit customers in order to establish mutually
beneficial relationships. Employees of Birla Cellulosic, starting with the technicians (generally
referred to as workmen in other organizations) to the level of President, visited customers with a
defined agenda to understand their needs and assist them. To help develop a learning culture, top
leaders regularly received training inputs and, they in turn imparted training to various
employees.
Regular Improvements in Business Processes: Birla Cellulosic adopted the Plan, Do, Check
and Act (PDCA) Approach for achieving continuous improvement in Business Processes.
Planning started with reviewing past performance of the processes, and setting targets based on
it, rather than designing the approach appropriate to achieving the set target. Do or deploy was
the approach designed to ensure full implementation. It was checked whether the set target was
achieved or not. If it achieved the desired target, due action was taken to standardize it to sustain
similar performances or replicate it to improve similar processes. In case the desired target was
not achieved, appropriate action was taken to achieve it. This was the improvement cycle that the
company followed.
Strength as an Organisation to Attract Overseas Attention: Companys consistent record of
achievements in the area of Quality in products and at the workplace helped it gain recognition
internationally as a quality-oriented organisation. The company's international recognitions, such
as the Deming Prize, and its growing exports bear testimony to this fact.

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Technological Edge: The Birla Cellulosic VSF manufacturing facility at Kharach is a state-ofthe-art manufacturing facility. Birla Cellulosics primary objective was to redefine the cellulosic
fibre, in terms of quality, cost and its applications. Some of the major equipments and facilities
that support their processes in the plant are boilers from
Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL), India, Turbines from TOYO DENKI, Japan, spinning
machines from SFD Nagda, after treatment machines from MAURER (Swiss) and SFD Nagda,
dryers from National (USA) and SFD Nagda and baling press from Autefa (Germany).
The figure depicts the WCM excellence model adopted by Birla Cellulosic. The unique features
of this model are as follows:

It is an integration of TQM and TPM

It covers all national and international award philosophies
It focuses on stake/share holder's value performance-oriented model with respect to
QCDIPESM
Provides systems, which were totally aligned with the PDCA Approach for consistent
and sustainable growth
Aligns the whole organisation towards a culture of excellence
WCM / TQM concepts supported by a strong facilitating structure

Fig 9.5: WCM excellence model adopted by Birla Cellulosic.

Specific comments from the auditors during evaluation and specific points mentioned
during the investiture ceremony: The Deming Prize Committee appreciated the company's

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bold strategy targeted not only at the Indian domestic market but also exports. Policy
management had been successfully applied thoroughly for the realization of strategy, which was
steadily leading to success. This was considered a unique point of the business unit. The strong
leadership demonstrated by top management in TQM promotion was acknowledged.
Establishing the "TQM gallery", which primarily meant providing an overall picture of the
company's challenge, was explained not only to employees but also to all concerned parties. This
initiative contributed to active participation and developing the company into a single entity
successfully. From the perspective of a materials industry, it was observed that the business unit
focused on customer values at each process of the customer chain, concerning consumers and
global environment. The company successfully innovated to introduce new products by actively
conducting customer surveys and collaborating with customers. The business unit contributed to
the return of viscose, which had earlier registered a decline in comparison. This was a unique
achievement of this business unit.
Mr. Hiroshi Okuda, Chairman of the Deming Prize Committee, on Birla Cellulosic, during the
investiture ceremony held on November 11, 2003, in Tokyo, Japan. Birla Cellulosic (a unit of
Grasim Industries Limited) has achieved outstanding performance by practising Total Quality
Management utilising statistical concepts and methodology based on the unit's excellent business
philosophies and leadership, demonstrated by its senior management." For Birla Cellulosic, this
achievement was the outcome of visionary leadership, exhaustive training inputs, an extensive
focus on involving people, and continuous, seamless communication. In the Indian context, the
VSF textile manufacturers were being severely affected. The alternate fibres and the highly
competitive international players were cutting, in large measure, into the domestic yarn market.
To weather the onslaught, VSF textile manufacturers had to import good quality VSF at higher
cost, which in turn affected their competitiveness. Birla Cellulosic identified the Critical Success
Factors (CSFs), to build an international image for Indian viscose fibre for making inroads into
the quality conscious European and US markets. Birla Cellulosics targeted purpose was written
- even before it was taken-off the drawing board; namely, to reverse the declining trend in the
VSF Life Cycle, by producing high quality products at low cost, and superior service, coupled
with capabilities to meet continuously enhancing and varying customer demands.
The company had commenced the institutionalisation of WCM/TQM since its inception. It had
matured adequately over a period of time through continuous review of processes to achieve the
desired improvements. This enabled BC to win various national, and internally, company (The
Aditya Birla Group) awards. This did not satisfy the purpose of Birla Cellulosic's senior
management, which decided to go for the world's most prestigious quality award to build an
international image of Viscose Fibre Quality for making inroads into quality conscious European
and US Markets. As a result of this recognition, the company was successfully able to check the
import of VSF into India from 5112 MT in 1999 to 1755 MT in 2004.
The company also established its presence through significant exports to European countries like
Italy, Spain, Germany, Greece, Belgium etc, thereby strengthening its image in the field of
quality. Having achieved the primary objective of becoming a world class manufacturer of VSF,
Birla Cellulosic is moving towards a phase of consolidation and expansion. To fulfill the Group's
endeavour to become the premier VSF manufacturer in the world, and also the most preferred

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source of VSF, Birla Cellulosic is taking steps to consolidate its quality initiatives and expand its
capacity in keeping with the Group's objectives.
Further as a demonstration of its commitment to service the customer and "New Users" every
time, Birla Cellulosic is commissioning its Textile Research and Application Development
Centre (TRADC). This is intended to help the customer to experiment with their end-products,
which is also eventually expected to enable Birla Cellulosic better understand its customer
expectations. The primary objective behind these initiatives is to help the Indian textile industry
develop viscose and viscose blended-end products, thereby strengthening the industry to grow in
the international market.

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The lesson content has been compiled from various sources in public domain including but not limited to the
internet for the convenience of the users. The university has no proprietary right on the same.

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