Making Products Made To Order
Made-to-order manufacturing can drastically reduce your inventories
|
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Making Products Made To Order: Made-to-order manufacturing can drastically reduce your inventories
By Andrei Kossyrine
© Xpress Software Inc. - All Rights reserved
http://www.xssoftware.com
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Making manufacturing more profitable is not a "one size fits all" solution. This change in thinking and operations is also not accomplished in a single step or procedure change. The following is one of a series of topics designed to enhance the profitability of manufacturing in general.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Possibly the most well known example of a company that excels in manufacturing products that are made to order is Dell. Michael Dell established speed as the basis of an innovative build-to-order business model designed to heighten sensitivity to customer satisfaction. The premise is very simple. Dell wants to develop and continuously improve a business process to deliver high-performance computer systems directly to the end user. The effectiveness of this model for Dell is amazing. More than 95% of the orders received are shipped within eight hours, customers routinely receive their orders within five days of placing an order, and best of all there is no finished-goods inventory. This translates to huge savings by not having to warehouse finished products.
There are many more benefits of making goods to order besides saving space - one is employee and equipment versatility. The new objective for employees is not to become an expert on how to operate a single machine, but to develop as many skills as possible that are relevant to manufacturing a completed product.
One way to establish a build-to-order process is to remove any obstacle that might halt the flow of production. One potential obstacle is the danger that an employee able to perform some necessary operation won't be available to perform it at the moment that it needs to be done. Cross training answers this problem by ensuring that an employee can perform any of a number of different operations as needed. Cross training your employees also adds to the value of each employee to the company as well as the company to the employee. It avoids the potential boredom that could come from doing the same task over and over again for eight hours a day.
Cross training can also serve the workflow in ways that are less direct, because the cross-trained employee has a larger perspective on the process overall. An employee who drills a hole, for example, may have to use that very hole during assembly. Experiences like this can lead to insights about how to improve either the process or the product to make manufacturing easier.
One potential obstacle (or opportunity, depending on how you view the situation) to this change is how your outside suppliers will react to this change in operations. To be effective, the suppliers you work with must follow this made to order model. You will have to make the decision as to whether or not you want to continue doing business with a supplier if they give you resistance to this change idea.
The emphasis today for these "made to order companies" is on reducing inventory, lead-time and product costs, as well as improving on-time delivery, all while remaining responsive to custom orders. The many changes in the way the company conducts its production process all flow from this change in its thinking.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Since 1996 Xpress Software Inc. has provided
technical assistance in lean manufacturing methods,
computer systems and business process automation
to maximize manufacturing profits.
Visit its website www.xssoftware.com or contact
Andrei Kossyrine at andrei@xssoftware.com.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
** Attn Ezine editors / Site owners **
Feel free to reprint this article in its entirety
in your ezine or on your site so long as you leave
all links in place, do not modify the content and
include our resource box as listed above.
If you do use the material please send us a note
so we can take a look. Thanks.
© Xpress Software Inc.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
|
|
Call Us Toll-Free:
1-888-777-0388
|
|
