Transitioning into New Manufacturing Paradigm

Book excerpt: The customers prefer small lot sizes, multimodels with model variations, short delivery lead times, and low cost. The organization that cannot transition to the new manufacturing paradigm of buyer-centric strategy, their rigidity of the current mass production (seller-centric), will eliminate them from the industry. There are many organizations that implemented robotics and automation to reduced labor, but, they have also increased their changeover time and made the internal processes more complex, rigid and created imbalance to the flow due to the single-minded focus of only labor reduction. To survive and succeed in the fierce market competition, the organizations must transition to the new manufacturing paradigm. The organizations must develop their people capabilities, agility, speed, responsiveness and be able to deliver products at the lowest cost. The concept of mass production of large lot sizes and lesser model changeovers are not acceptable, this thinking must be evaporated to succeed in the new customer-centric business. This book introduces practically proven concepts that will transition the manufacturing organization from the mass production focus built on rigidity to a high-performing organization equipped with agility, flexibility, short lead times, multimodel production, and new organization culture that drives daily continuous improvement and problem-solving. This book shows the whats and hows to transition to the new manufacturing paradigm and successfully compete to win in the fierce customer-centric business.