TIME

TOPIC

8:00 – 9:00 a.m.

9:00 – 9:45 a.m.

(Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) “Job Shop Lean” versus “ToyotaLean” (Why the Toyota Production System is unsuitable for Jobshops)

Overview of this Presentation: This presentation will establish the theme for the conference. Typically, the Lean Thinking Process proposed by James Womack and Daniel Jones is implemented in a factory as follows:

1. Specify Value from the Customer’s Perspective
2. Identify a Value Stream
3. Make the Value Stream “Flow” by Converting the Factory from Departments to Product-based Cells
4. Schedule Production in the Value Stream based on Customer Pull
5. Strive towards Perfection

But, in the case of jobshops, the “Lean Toolkit” for implementing the Womack-Jones process (Value Stream Mapping, Flowline Cells designed using Takt Times, Production Scheduling using Heijunka, etc.) needs to be radically changed and enhanced. The fundamental reason is that the Toyota Production System was designed for low-variety high-volume (LVHV) product assembly whereas the Jobshop Production System needs to be designed for high-variety low-volume (HVLV) component manufacturing. “Job Shop Lean” recognizes that, with Waste Elimination serving as a foundation, a successful HVLV manufacturing strategy requires a different mindset, new methods and computer-aided tools to design a production system that is Flexible, Agile, Reconfigurable and Adaptable to business and operational conditions that the Toyota Production System never has to deal with.

9:45 - 10:00 a.m.

• BREAK

SESSION #1: A Process-centric Approach to Job Shop Lean

SESSION #2: A People-centric Approach to Job Shop Lean

10:00 – 10:45 a.m.

(Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) Reduction and Simplification of Material Flows in the Factory: The Essential Foundation for JobshopLean

(Daniel Stoelb, Lean Manufacturing Consortium) Job shop Lean, Leadership and the People Side of Change

Overview of this Presentation:
It is not a trivial task to implement the standard Womack-Jones Lean Thinking Process in any high-variety low-volume (HVLV) jobshop. The absolutely essential first step is to reduce and simplify the material flows in the facility! This presentation will describe a range of strategies that help to reduce the flow complexity of a jobshop in an attempt to achieve the linear and unidirectional flow patterns that are characteristic of a Toyota assembly  factory. All of these strategies exploit knowledge of the different part families in the product mix and the resources shared between these part families. Use of these strategies helps to design a Flexible and  Lean facility layout that is suited for the HVLV operating conditions of any jobshop. A primary feature of this layout is that it is intermediate between a Process Layout and a Cellular Layout comprised of a rigid and inflexible set of manufacturing cells!

Overview of this Presentation:
A critical element for the success of Lean, one that extends beyond the technical and scheduling aspects, is the People Side of Change. Most change programs fail to meet expectations because the importance of this aspect was underestimated from the outset. In the beginning, there were change programs like TQM (Total Quality Management) and BPR (Business Process Re- Engineering), then came TOC (Theory Of Constraints), and now we have Six Sigma and Lean. Based on his considerable experience, the speaker will show that, no matter what change program is being introduced in an organization, it is the ability, or inability, of the implementers to understand its impact on people issues (conflict resolution, leadership, inter-personal communications, organizational design, recruiting and training employees to work outside of traditional functional silos, etc.) that will eventually determine the success of that change program.

10:45 – 11:00 a.m.

• BREAK

11:00 – 12:00 a.m.

(Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) A Quick-Start Approach to Job Shop Lean

(Daniel Stoelb, Lean Manufacturing Consortium) Case Studies on the People Side of Change

Overview of this Presentation: This presentation will describe a project that introduced the Job Shop Lean methodology to executives and shopfloor personnel at a custom forge shop where they had only a basic knowledge of Lean. Since the company makes thousands of different part numbers, a key challenge was to define and execute a pilot 3-month project that had maximum educational and operational value. Despite the limited duration and scope of the project, the project team identified 32 specific improvement opportunities that company management acknowledged would yield them significant benefits.

Overview of this Presentation: This presentation will describe actual case studies where the LMC (Lean Manufacturing Consortium) was involved in jobshops, and how the People Side of Change played a significant role in making the Lean Tools succeed. Both Tools and People are necessary to achieve truly significant change in any JobhopLean implementation. Synergy must exist between these two dimensions of a Lean implementation in order to move any organization to the next level of performance and success.

12:00 – 1:00 p.m.

• LUNCH

1:00 – 1:45 p.m.

(Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) Integration of Theory Of Constraints (TOC) and Lean Thinking in a Custom Forge Shop
 

(Daniel Stoelb, Lean Manufacturing Consortium, and Clyde Parker, STAR Leadership Development Inc.) Training Employees to be Fast, Flexible and Adaptable in a Dynamic Work Environment.

Overview of this Presentation: This presentation will describe a project that integrated best practices that are beyond the standard competing manufacturing improvement strategies, such as Lean Thinking, Theory Of Constraints and Six Sigma. If used in isolation, none of these strategies is suitable for high-variety low-volume (HVLV) manufacturing facilities. Therefore, we developed our very own “Toolkit” to support our rigorous methodology for implementing Lean in the jobshop where we executed this project!

Overview of this Presentation: Jobshops, by virtue of their size, often do not have the market luxuries that a Toyota assembly factory usually enjoys, such as high demand volumes, stable demand and ordering patterns and repetitive assembly of a few product variants. Given the constraints of resources (money, time, business volume, employee skills, leadership, etc.), how does one train the workforce and executives in a small enterprise to adopt and embrace Lean for high-mix low-volume environments? For example, an operator in a U-shaped, one-piece flow assembly cell with limited product mix and low demand fluctuations at an automotive assembly factory requires a different set of skills compared to those required by an operator in a flexible fabrication cell at the facility of a Tier 3 supplier facility!

SESSION #1: Computer-aided Methods for Job Shop Lean

SESSION #2: Scheduling, ERP and Shopfloor Control

1:45 – 2:30 p.m.

(Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) Value Stream Mapping of a Complete Product

(Gregory Quinn, Quinn & Associates, Inc.) Leanest of Lean: The Role of Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS) in Lean Operations

Overview of this Presentation: Many Value Streams have multiple flows that merge. In the case of a product with a complex Bill Of Materials, due to the large number of branches, it may be necessary to draw similar or identical flows over one another, or to choose the key components first and get the others later, if needed. This presentation will describe a new computer- aided method – Value Network Mapping – that was developed to map the flows of each and every component, sub-assembly and the final product. A Value Added Ratio (VAR) for measuring the flow time of the final product, subject to capacity and sequencing constraints where components and/or subassemblies needed to to queue at shared workcenter/s.

Overview of this Presentation: Some companies want to become Lean and move forward to adopt Lean principles and best practices. However, many companies that undertake this journey have issues that do not fit neatly into the standard Lean “envelope”. Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS) can address these issues most effectively. This presentation will discuss those issues, provide a demonstration of an FCS package as it relates to Lean, and offer results from case studies.

2:30 – 3:15 p.m.

(Hosni Adra, CreateASoft, Inc.) Computer-aided Drawing and Dynamic Performance Evaluation of Complex Value Streams

(Charles Murgiano, Waterloo Manufacturing Software) A Step-By-Step Tutorial on Computer-aided Scheduling of a Jobshop

Overview of this Presentation: This presentation will outline the use of computer simulation to study the interactions, performance, and variability in complex value streams. A sample case study will be used to determine the critical path, evaluate the performance of each value stream and study the effect of changes in multiple value streams to achieve improvements in overall system performance.

Overview of this Presentation: Finite Capacity Scheduling (FCS) is to a jobshop what Pull Scheduling is to the Toyota Production System (TPS). None of the core concepts of Pull Scheduling (Heijunka, Pitch, Takt Time, Product-specific Kanbans, Inventory Buffers, etc.) are at all relevant to Jobshop Scheduling! The basic reason is that an assembly line simply does not have the scheduling characteristics of a jobshop, such as:

• large number of products with diverse routings that need to be scheduled,
• large number of different resources that need to be scheduled,
• high variability in setup and cycle times for different operations,
• due dates,
• multiple resource constraints (machines, tools, fixtures, materials, labor, etc.)
• sequence-dependent setup times,
• significant inter-operation transfer delays that necessitate scheduling of the material handlers also,
• etc.

A robust, speedy and affordable strategy for implementing quires the combination of (i) a knowledgeable production scheduler with a sound knowledge of established methods for jobshop scheduling and (ii) a high-performance FCS software that supports his/her scheduling-related decision-making relating to the production schedule.

3:15 – 3:30 p.m.

• BREAK

3:30 – 4:15 p.m.

(Hosni Adra, CreateASoft, Inc.) Simulating and Scheduling the Jobshop

(John Custer, Major Tool & Machine, Inc.) How Lean co-exists with ERP and FCS in a Build-To-Print Custom Manufacturing Shop

Overview of this Presentation: Simulating a jobshop is a complex problem, due to the varied and extensive product mix that is typical of this manufacturing environment. Scheduling a jobshop is an equally difficult problem. With the incorporation of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology, instead of relying on ERP systems, simulation and scheduling systems can now provide accurate and extensive analysis of real-time operations in a jobshop. A step-by-step approach to implement these systems to enable dynamic scheduling of jobshops will be described.

Overview of this Presentation: Major Tool & Machine, Inc. (MTM) offers build-to-print custom manufacturing to customers around the world. In Plant #1 and Plant #2, MTM operates a low-volume high-variability business that makes very complex items in volumes ranging from 1 off to 50/year. Whereas, in Plant #3 they operate a moderate-volume repetitive-demand machining and welding business with volumes to ~200/week of any part number and multiple part numbers. Prior to Lean, MTM had focused on leveraging their Visual Enterprise^TM ERP system to provide competitive advantage in operations management and marketing ex. QA/QC was integrated into the ERP system. Today, scheduling using the ERP system involves using the full capabilities of the software with manual interventions to yield a Finite Capacity Schedule that suits the jobshop environment. Lean Manufacturing at MTM began with a mid-level Implementation Team that utilized 5S and ?Clean-Up Kaizens? to establish a starting point that addressed culture change to reinforce management?s commitment to the changes being made in the ?infrastructure?, as well as to let employees know that every individual was responsible for supporting the initiative. The next steps that MTM has planned involve a return to the core best practices of Lean ? Root Cause Analysis, Setup Reduction, Quality Function Deployment, Value Stream Mapping and Policy Deployment to define strategic goals and align performance metrics with these goals.

4:15 – 5:00 p.m.

(Brian Mayer, Virginia Tech, and Shahrukh Irani, Ohio State University) Design of a Focused Factory for a Ship Repair Facility

(Jason Premo, nMetric) Leveraging Collaborative Production Management Technology to Accelerate Continuous Improvement

Overview of this Presentation: Organic ship maintenance facilities and depots of the US Navy are mostly organized as trade-specific shops rather than by product (or process) family ex. welders are in the Weld Shop, machinists are in the Machine Shop, pipe-fitters are in the Pipe Shop. There is a belief that this guild-type organizational structure is what enables a repair facility to do almost anything, albeit at the cost of moving product all over the "factory". This organizational structure is identical to the Functional (or Department) Layout that is preferred by most jobshops. But, any company that has successfully implemented Lean Thinking has almost always replaced a Functional (or Process Village) Layout by a Cellular Layout.!

At the US Navy’s Southeast Regional Maintenance Center (SERMC), a typical repair job must visit multiple shops that pass work back and forth between them. Thereby, significant delays and operational wastes occur because people have to walk between the shops, discuss matters at daily production meetings, and email/phone each other to make sure that their schedules match. If activities are not completed as per schedule, the jobs get further delayed because they queue at the shops, waiting to be served. This lack of detailed (and accurate) planning and scheduling, combined with poor schedule visibility and shopfloor control, is the curse of the Functional Layout.

This presentation will describe a pilot project to assess the feasibility of Cellular Manufacturing at SERMC. Using the PFAST software, several potential families of repair jobs, and the appropriate cluster of shops for each family, were identified. Based on these results, it was decided to implement a Focused Factory to complete any repair job done by the Dive Shop. This requires that the Dive Shop be merged with other support shops, and be provided the necessary tools, cross-trained personnel, equipment and other support systems to become an autonomous multi-function shop.

Overview of this Presentation:
In a recent study by Industry Week, over 40% of manufacturers stated that their Lean initiatives are backsliding or have hit a plateau, especially where product demand and mix fluctuate. When product mix and demand fluctuate, Production Scheduling using traditional outdated manual methods that are error- prone, inflexible, labor-intensive and do not provide user-friendly access to information will be a major bottleneck. This presentation will offer practical methods, best practices and a case study on how a high-mix Tier 1 automotive manufacturer is leveraging the latest in Real-Time Scheduling and Manufacturing Execution Systems to achieve their Continuous Improvement goals. New approaches to support Lean initiatives, including Heijunka, E-Kanban and Supermarkets, that leverage technology to solve the challenges of Lean Production Scheduling will be described.

5:00 p.m.

Adjourn