Question

Critical Thinking

The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002).Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at cheaper rate and to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).

Increased global competition leads the industry to increasing efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keenindecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasing global economy, cost effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.

To meet all the challenges organizations try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes its efforts to reduce the manufacturing costs and to improve the quality of product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supplytechniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firm’sleads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).

Consult chapter 7 of your text book or secondary available data on internet and answer the following questions.

Question:

1. Why Companies adopted Lean Thinking and JIT model?
2. Discuss major types of Waste, companies has to keep in mind during production.

Answer 1

Lean thinking:

By lean we mean to do more with fewer options. There is less time, less money, low space, less availability of labor, low inventory, etc. It is a process where we get rid of waste systematically. In lean manufacturing, the firm should focus on its inner capabilities by lacking the waste. Manufacturers re-examined customer value. Lean principle indicates that every step is important as we have to value the customer and their choices what they want.

JIT model:

JIT means by "just in time".The focus of the JIT is efficiency. It is a method of inventory management where raw material, goods, and manpower is rescheduled at the time of the manufacturing process thus they reduce the cost of inventory. JIT is a type of inventory management system where goods are ready at any time for the production so as to meet the demands of the customers. By using JIt a manufacturing company has good mastery over the inventory process.

Types of waste, companies have to keep in mind during production:

• Defects: Defect cause in a company due to many reasons such as bad quality machine repairing, no proper documentation, no standards, by not fulfilling the need of the customers, bad design, etc.

• Excess Processing: It occurs due to the bad quality design of the process. Ther are many reasons behind this such as lack of communication, a copy of data from other sources, the communication gap between the lower level and higher level within the company and human error, etc.

• Overproduction: It occurs due to the fickle process within the company. No stable production is processed. There is no clear message, prediction, and forecast in the company. The needs of the customer are not very much clear. The delayed process scheduled is done.

• Waiting: Waiting can occur when a situation like a deadlock occurs. As in deadlock, there are much instruction at one time and the system is not able to solve any of the instruction given and that results in a deadlock condition. In an organization delay time set-ups, no proper communication in the process can cause waiting.

• Inventory: When the raw material for manufacturing will be in excess then there will occur inventory waste. When the organization was not able to link between the manufacturing and scheduling then waste of inventory occurs.

• Transportation: It occurs due the lack of proper transportation facilities which are given by the company. Also over transportation facilities can cause waste in transportation. Lack of design of production system can cause a waste of transportation.

• Motion: It occurs due to the overburden of physical motion such as reaching, bending, etc. Waste of motion can also occur due to the lack of standards in the production.

• Non-Utilized Talent: This waste occurred when talented employees were not able to show their talent. This occurs due to the lack of communication with management. As a result, the work will not be assigned according to the capability of the employees. Lack of management is also responsible for this waste.