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JobshopLean (JSLean): Lean Thinking in Jobshops
Extending Lean
for High-Variety Low-Volume Manufacturers |
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The how-to books and tools for design and operation of profitable jobshops are significantly fewer
in number than those written for Lean Manufacturing for assembly line-type facilities. Here is a sample of challenging implementation roadblocks that, if workable solutions were to exist for them, could serve as the foundations for a guidebook on “Jobshop Lean”:
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How does a jobshop segment its product mix into categories such as “Runners”, “Repeaters”
and “Strangers”? Do viable computer-oriented methods exist, such as Product-Quantity-Routing Analysis, Group Technology and Product-Process Matrix Clustering, capable of analyzing a large database of anywhere between 500 to 5000+ routings?
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How does a jobshop identify and
implement, not just a single “pilot
cell”, but all potential cells
for
different families of parts that may
exist in its large product mix? What
does it do about the
“cats and dogs” in its product
portfolio?
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How does a jobshop develop a self-motivated workforce knowledgeable in Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing Engineering skills to seek out and eliminate muda in administrative and production processes?
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How does a jobshop adopt, or
adapt, the essentials of Lean Thinking, Theory Of
Constraints, Quick Response Manufacturing, Demand Flow
Technology, etc.
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When demand forecasts are
unreliable or non-existent?
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When suppliers may not be prepared to deliver JIT?
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When equipment must be multi-function, and not right-sized, to compensate for a small
multi-skilled workforce?
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When customers could be here today but gone tomorrow?
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When drawings, route sheets, inspection plans, gauges, tools, etc. for past (or new)
orders need to be retrieved (or made from scratch) on a routine basis?
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How does a jobshop define and distill its “core manufacturing competencies” into a guidebook that its sales staff could use to accept, evaluate or reject new orders based on past
cost/benefit performance measures?
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How does a jobshop implement Finite Capacity Scheduling without purchasing expensive software, since Drum-Buffer-Rope
and CONWIP scheduling have been known to succeed in
such facilities?
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How does a jobshop train its material handlers to perform shopfloor
scheduling and order progressing
functions, similar to the water striders who
are employed in the Toyota Production System?
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How does a jobshop adopt real-time inventory tracking technology utilized in warehouses and distribution centers to achieve pseudo-JIT operations?
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There are many such differences between the low-variety high-volume Toyota Production System (TPS) and the high-variety low-volume jobshop and custom manufacturer.
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In this Conference you will:
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Learn about a new Lean Thinking
process that has been
successfully used in high-variety low-volume (HVLV)
manufacturing environments
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Compare and contrast
process-centric and people-centric views of Lean
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Assess the utility of software tools to facilitate
the implementation of Lean
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Understand the importance of systematic integration
of Process Flow Analysis, Value Network Mapping,
Simulation, Scheduling and Production Control in a
jobshop
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Discover the importance of flexible automation and
computer-aided decision support to tackles the
complexity due to the large product mix of a jobshop
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