A: I called this meeting today in order to discuss our
manufacturing plan. As I’m sure you’re all aware,
with the credit crunch, and the global financial cri-
sis, we’re obligated to look for more cost efficient
ways of producing our goods. We don’t want to
have to be looking at redundancies. So, we’ve
outlined a brief plan to implement the just-in-time
philosophy.
B: We have two basic points that we want to focus
on. First of all, we want to reduce our lead time.
C: Why would want to do that? I think this is not an
area that really needs to be worked on.
B: Well, we want to reduce production and delivery
lead timesfor better overall efficiency.
A: Right, production lead times can be reduced by
moving work stations closer together, reducing
queue length, like for example, reducing the num-
ber of jobs waiting to be processed at a given ma-
chine, and improving the coordination and coop-
eration between successive processes. Delivery
lead times can be reduced through close cooper-
ation with suppliers, possibly by inducing suppli-
ers to locate closer to the factory or working with
a faster shipping company.
C: I see… That makes sense.
B: The second point is that we want to require sup-
plier quality assurance and implement a zero de-
fects quality program. We currently have far too
many errors that lead to defective items and there-
fore, they must be eliminated. A quality control at
the source program must be implemented to give
workers the personal responsibility for the quality
of the work they do, and the authority to stop pro-
duction when something goes wrong.
C: I’m with you on this one. It’s essential that we
reduce these errors; we’ve got to force our suppli-
ers to reduce their mistakes.
A: Exactly. Well, let’s look at how we’re going to put
this plan into action. First...(fade out) |