Title: Key Issues for the Implementation of Lean Manufacturing System
Abstract: 1. Introduction Global competitiveness is not a term, which is discussed by the researchers at conferences and seminars. is a reality, which is observed in our day to day life. Between 1950s and 1990s, Indian Industrial development policy was characterized by excessive regulation. The gradual opening of the Indian economy resulted in the entry of foreign competitors and expanded production of domestic manufacturers (Dangyach & Deshmukh, 2001). Dangyach & Deshmukh (2000) stated that today Indian companies are facing competition from imports and multinational companies in terms of reduced cost, improved quality, products with higher performance, a wider range of products and better services all delivered simultaneously. In the coming years firms will face even tougher competition for survival. Success or failure will depend on their ability capture or control scarce resources (Singh et. al, 2004). The cutthroat competition in many sectors such as Electronics, Telecommunication, and Automobiles etc has provided a wide range of products to the common man at affordable price. The market pressure of delivering variety products at cheaper price has forced the organizations to seek new philosophies to run the business. The main aim of these philosophies is same, to utilize the available resources optimally to deliver the goods as per customers expectations. Lee & Oakes (1996) described some of these philosophies as World Class Manufacturing (WCM), Lean Manufacturing System (LMS), and Total Quality Management (TQM) and business process re-engineering (BPR). TQM, LMS, JIT and BPR are most widely terms used in Indian Industries as an improvement strategy, but the difference in their approaches and interrelationship is not much clear (Upadhye et al. 2004). The Central Lean Principles are shown in Figure 1. An inventory system exists when it is necessary to stock physical goods or commodities for the purpose of satisfying demand over a specified time horizon finite or infinite (Khadakkar & Devgan, 2004). Inventories are hold to increase the availability of product and to reduce cost by exploiting any economics of scale that may exist during both production and distribution. Inventory is a Major source of Cost. Generally Inventory is considered as a necessary evil. The decisions to hold a certain amount of inventory is based on many assumptions such as lead time distance of the supplier, frequently changing plans etc. Inventory management is not a static process, it is a dynamic process. The persons who plan the inventory must closely monitor the system and make the required modifications in the Inventory management planning. [FIGURE 1 OMITTED] Quality is always considered in the terms of the product or service that fulfills or exceeds our expectations. The definition of Quality has come a long way from Juran's Fitness for use or Deming's Degree of excellence to a more definitive definition given by ISO 9000:2000 It is defined as the degree to which a set of inherent characteristics fulfills requirement. Degree means that quality can be used with adjective such as poor, good & excellent. Inherent is defined as existing in something, especially as permanent characteristics. Characteristics can be quantitative or qualitative. Requirement is a need or expectation that is stated; generally implied by the organization, its customer, and other interested parties (Besterfield, 2004). The Inventory, Quality and Maintenance in LMS are described in Table 1. Today quality rules the market not the price. The capture of market by Japanese products proves this statement. Every developed and developing country is focusing on producing world class quality to survive in its own market. While discussing Quality, people often say that quality control depends upon process and with increased automation quality depends on equipment. Increased automations lead to unmanned production, but the maintenance heavily depends on human skills beyond the competence of the average maintenance. …
Publication Year: 2009
Publication Date: 2009-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
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Cited By Count: 17
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