MANUFACTURING PROCESS

INTRODUCTION

In this modern world, the manufacturing industry has been a tremendous asset to the
development of the human evolution and also caused a quick rise of a few nations most
notably, the United States. The manufacturing industry is responsible for mass-producing
technologies, machinery, structures, food, and even some parts that can be made later to
complete a plane, car, or other vehicle. Manufacturing industries arose as a result of the
industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries, gradually replacing laborious hands-on
labour with ease through the introduction of machines. As the manufacturing industries kept
on becoming competitive due to a lot of investors and new products, it became quite a battle
to always stay on top as a good company that creates good products and attracted new buyers
and investors. This caused a few methodologies or for a better word, philosophies that was
carefully curated to propel companies to absolute market domination. Of the many
philosophies created, “lean manufacturing” and “six sigma” quickly became very popular
among companies alike.
First, lets talk about Lean Manufacturing. It is known that the term “lean” was first founded
by John Krafcik in his article “Triumph of the Lean Production System.” Written in 1988. It
then begun to seriously catch people’s eyes after the publication of “The Machine That
Changed the World” by James Womack, Daniel Jones, and Daniel Roos in 1990. The
thinking then continued growing and was developed by many leaders and inventors for quite
a few years. But the lean manufacturing philosophy that we use mainly is said to be created
by Taiichi Ohno. Taiichi Ohno (1912-1990), was a very famous Japanese industrial engineer.
He is widely known to be the father of the Toyota Production System which was then known
as "Lean Manufacturing" in the U.S. He is also the one who created Just-in-time
manufacturing (JIT), kanban, jidoka, and many more concepts that helped his company,
Toyota to scale their manufacturing and become a world-renowned company. Now lets see
what lean manufacturing actually means, along with the terms Kanban and jidoka. Lean
manufacturing is an approach that focuses on reducing waste while increasing productivity in
industrial processes. Anything that buyers do not believe provides value and are unwilling to
pay for is considered waste. Reduced lead times, lower operational costs, and increased
product quality are some of the advantages of lean manufacturing. There are 5 main
principles for lean manufacturing which are as follows:
1. What defines value to a customer,
2. Value stream mapping,
3. Improving lead time by creating a flow,
4. Establishing a pull system which means we only start production when there is an
order or demand,
5. Kanban, which is basically known as reduction of inventory waste.
Now let us talk about the term “Jidoka”. Jidoka is a Lean manufacturing principle that
ensures quality is incorporated into every step of the manufacturing process. It is best
recognized for its use in the Toyota manufacturing system. By incorporating the jidoka
principle, it becomes very easy to identify and patch up the mistakes in the production
process. Jidoka immediately halts the production process and works on fixing the problem
first to avoid build-up of problems. Just-in-Time Manufacturing on the other hand is a
manufacturing workflow methodology that is created specifically to reduce flow time within
production system and also the response time from the suppliers and customers. It in simple
terms aims to reduce the delay and also increase the speed flow of manufacturing products.
Thus, rather than accumulating vast inventories of what the consumer might want, you only
create exactly what the consumer requests when they request it. This allows you to focus your
efforts on only completing products for which you will be paid for, rather than creating a
stock buildup. Each process in a Just in Time manufacturing system will only create what the
following phase in the sequence requires.
And now it is time for us to shift our focus on the term “Six Sigma”. The term was coined by
Bill Smith who was working at Motorola company during the 1980s. He proposed a method
to reduce defects by reducing variations in the process to the CEO of Motorola and in 1987,
Motorola launched "The Six Sigma Quality Program." After seeing the meteoric success of
Motorola, a handful of companies started to adapt the methodology to their own production
and saw success. Six Sigma is a statistical analysis-based methodology for improving
business processes. It is a data-driven and highly disciplined methodology and approach for
ensuring defect eradication in any commercial or organizational process. Its main objective is
to minimize the variability in business and manufacturing processes. Six sigma contains a lot
of terms like “The 5 Whys”, “Regression Analysis”, and “Kaizen”. First let’s talk about The
5 Whys of six sigma. By repeatedly asking the question “why”, we can reduce the number of
causes that lead to a problem or confusion. The 5 Whys is a Six Sigma DMAIC (Define,
Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) technique used in the Analyze phase. The 5 Whys is
very useful when used to solve problems that involve interactions between humans and also
during day-to-day business problems. Regression analysis on the other hand is also associated
with the analysis phase of the five-step Six Sigma method of DMAIC. The impact of
variables on each other as well as the result is estimated using regression analysis. It enables
for the evaluation of how well a theory or creation fits the data in the real world. Regression
analysis is also said to be used in the finding of areas where wastage is happening. It enables
for both data-driven prediction and determining whether results match what is predicted when
a particular strategy is altered. In short, the usage of regression analysis is said to decrease
work-in-progress, improve process flow, increase productivity and reduce cycle times.
Finally, kaizen is a Japanese philosophy that focuses on continuous improvement throughout
our life. And workplace related environment it simply translates to improving every aspect
and function of the workplace from the marketing to the manufacturing to the workers.
Kaizen is a waste-reduction strategy that strives to remove waste in all of an organization's
systems by enhancing standardized operations and procedures. Practitioners can include
Kaizen into their entire Six Sigma efforts by knowing the basics of the process.
 Body
In my assignment, I have decided to choose the Intel corporation and the fabrication of
chipsets (CPU) as my example. Chip manufacturing requires a lot of attention to detail and
materials of quality. They could not afford a slight manufacturing defect as it might render
that entire chipset useless.