Improving Modern Manufacturing Systems
By
Dr. Samuel C. Obi
Department of Aviation and Technology
One
Phone: (408) 924-3218
FAX: (408) 924-3198
E-Mail: sobi@email.sjsu.edu
Introduction
Every manufacturing system normally
undergoes several phases. The system must be planned, implemented and
controlled, generally by trained and competent manufacturing and management
personnel. During the planning phase, consideration must be given to critical
factors such as potential market for the product, its design, processes to be
employed, facilities, equipment and materials needed for production. In the
implementation phase, these resources are acquired and put in place so that
production can begin. The implementation phase goes with the controlling phase,
in that the system must be controlled or managed both at the time of its
implementation and during production.
When the planning, implementation and
controlling phases have been safely and successfully undertaken, it is
necessary that the personnel follow up with continuous improvement, to meet the
emerging demands, and also to ensure that the company will remain in business
for a long time. It is at this stage that many technical managers, like
Manufacturing Systems graduates, use their initiative to study and improve the
different areas of their manufacturing systems for continued and improved
productivity.
This paper addresses why it is
necessary to improve manufacturing systems, and the different ways the
improvements can be accomplished in the different areas of the field. Focusing
on the need to use manufacturing systems curricula as a tool to instill related
improvement principles in students, it also addresses the nature of the
improvements needed in improving the systems for the survival of the companies
where students may become potential employees.
Importance of Improving Manufacturing Systems
The works of improvement gurus like
F. W. Taylor, who spearheaded research on work measurement, helped to sustain
the American manufacturing industry through the twentieth century. Later, the
combined forces of such manufacturing philosophies as total quality management
(TQM), just-in-time (JIT) manufacturing, lean manufacturing and computer
integrated manufacturing (CIM) created an important improvement in U. S.
manufacturing, setting the stage for the economic growth of the 1990s (Wright,
2001). These philosophies and the powerful technologies that supported them provided
the impetus that sustained the
But in today’s manufacturing industry, staying in
business is a life-and-death issue for many manufacturing companies. Because of
stiff global and domestic competition, it has meant a survival of the fittest
for many companies in recent years. It is now well known that the one thing
most surviving or winning manufacturing companies have in common today is that
they continually study and improve their manufacturing systems.
One way to illustrate the importance of improving
manufacturing systems is to consider the all too familiar story of two local
manufacturers of a typical high-demand household product. The two companies
were the sole producers in the region, and have supplied this product to the
public for years. But gradually, one of the companies began to supply the
product at a significantly reduced price, a price the other company could not
match. Within a short time the latter began a series of lay offs, and
eventually went out of business.
The sad end of the failed company
can be explained by several improvement-related reasons. The successful company
must have done some things better which helped to lower its production cost,
and resulted in a reduction in the price of its product. What is the nature of
these improvements? A careful examination of the dynamics of manufacturing
systems will help to answer this question.
Potential Areas for Improving Modern Manufacturing Systems
The
premise taken in this article is that manufacturing systems could be improved
when its sub-systems or components are improved. This is because a system is a
collection of entities all of which function together for the benefit of the
whole. When a change is made in any of the components, it affects the other
entities in the system. Likewise, a typical manufacturing system consists of
production methods or procedures, facilities or equipment, tooling, material
handling, quality assurance, production control, and people (
Obi
(1999) identified and described four groups of components from the above
definitions. They are:
1.
Equipment and facilities component: machines,
tooling, equipment and facilities.
2.
Production methods component: procedures,
production methods, quality assurance, and production control.
3. Material
handling component: material
handling or material moving systems.
4. Labor
component: people or men.
An
examination of these major components will help to determine the type of change
necessary to accomplish certain desired improvements.
Improving
Equipment and Facilities component
For a modern manufacturing entity to survive today, improving its
equipment and facilities must take a comprehensive approach. Days are gone when
manufacturing companies had machines and building spaces sitting idle for days
or weeks on end. Today's manufacturing companies cannot afford those luxuries
any longer, because they must operate in an efficient manner to make profit for
their stockholders, and account for every dollar invested in that business. As
a result, an idle piece of machinery or an empty or underused space cannot be
tolerated.
Because they constitute major capital investment for
the company, facilities and equipment improvement for modern manufacturing systems
must have their basis on the long-term goals and objectives of the company
concerned. These goals and objectives may include the company's business plans
and products, together with some allowance for future expansion. This is
because equipment and facility component are capital items which are
heavily dependent on the company’s finances to purchase or
improve. Improvements in this component can be few or many, and vary according
to each company’s needs. Sample areas that many be considered, and the nature
of their improvements, are shown in Table 1.
Table 1
Improvement Areas in Equipment
and Facilities Component.
__________________________________________________________________________
Area Potential
Improvement Factors
__________________________________________________________________________
Buildings including
factories Design
style, ergonomics, location, energy conservation, ease of maintenance, cost of
maintenance, space utilization, rent versus purchase, future expansion,
legislation requirements and security issues, future expansion, space utility,
location, cost of construction, business compatibility, other.
Equipment Rent
versus purchase, cost of purchasing, retrofitting versus purchase, cost of
maintenance, ease of maintenance, tooling requirement, compatibility with
facility, compatibility with existing infrastructure, adaptability with
emerging technologies, future expansion needs, percent utilization,
appropriateness of automation, cell layout format, flexibility of automation,
other.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Koenig (1994) noted that “A facilities plan is a well
thought out procedure for purchasing either new equipment or rebuilt equipment
in order to meet the capability or capacity requirements of the company"
(p. 86). Therefore, facilities and equipment improvement plan must integrate
these carefully thought-out and long-term goals of the company in order to meet
its future needs. Such often subtle issues as immediate and future capacity of
the facility and equipment, cost of their maintenance, ideal equipment vendors
or dealers, and operator training and skills requirement must be included in
that plan.
Improving
Production Methods Component
In the contest of this
topic, production methods are procedures, methods, and quality assurance and
control tasks employed in manufacturing a product. Modern technologies and
philosophies have generated manufacturing tools and techniques like statistical
process control (SPC), just-in-time manufacturing (JIT), total quality
management (TQM), time and motion studies, manufacturing planning and control
systems (MPCS) and a host of others used to facilitate manufacturing processes.
Such tools are a must in today’s manufacturing industry.
Processes themselves are a
set of sequential and value-added tasks that use organizational resources to
produce a product or service (Fryman, 2002). According to Fryman, processes can
be unique to a single department or can cross many departments. Perhaps more
important is the fact that the quality of the products being manufactured is
completely dependent on the quality of the processes employed in making them.
There are literally hundreds of processes employed in manufacturing industry.
Improvement in any of these processes will cause an improvement in the system
that supports it.
In
modern automated manufacturing systems, processes are intricately attached to
the tool or equipment employed to generate them. To perform the process
“casting” for example, the manufacturer needs to use the associated equipment
such as a furnace, muller, sand slinger and other molding tools. To perform a
quality check, the inspector may need an inspection mirror, a surface plate,
and a profilometer. Likewise, to mill a part, the manufacturer will need a
milling machine, milling cutter and so forth. Whether the worker is working in
the factory or in the office, different processes associated with different
equipment and tools are employed to perform the necessary tasks needed to
manufacture the product.
Therefore,
to change or improve the operation of any process, the equipment and/or tools
(including software) used to generate it, together with its operating
parameters, must be changed, modified or adjusted. For example, to perform an
efficient milling of materials, cutting tools must be conditioned or ground to
the right configuration. This given configuration is referred to as the tool’s
geometry. Cutting tool manufacturers modify these angles and their
corresponding radii to meet their specific needs. If the cutter is not given
the proper geometry, it simply will not function well.
Likewise, parameters like
optimum speeds, feeds, depth of cut, heat control and tool material must be
controlled in order to improve the process. And if the associated SPC software
is not upgraded, the process may not yield satisfactory results. The same holds
for all the related software and techniques used to control other tools,
machines and their processes. If the software, tool, machine or procedure is
not improved by upgrading or changing, the system will not yield the desired
result.
Improving
Material handling component
Broadly speaking, manufacturing
materials include metals, ceramics, composites, synthetic polymers (plastics),
and natural polymers (wood). Other materials such as coolants or cutting fluids
can be added to these. Three key areas are open for improvement in materials
and material handling. The first area is the type of materials the company will
be employing in manufacturing its various product lines. This is important
because it will influence the types of equipment that will be purchased for
machining or fabricating those materials. Those materials, their available
shapes, prices, ease of processing, manufacturing properties, substitutes, suppliers,
proximity and environmental/disposal issues should be identified.
The second key area that needs to be
improved is material movement or handling. Schey (2000) indicated that material
movement is the most auxiliary function in production process. Raw materials,
partly finished parts and other tooling must be made available to every
workstation at the right time. The material-handling system that should be
improved in a modern manufacturing enterprise can be programmable automation,
such as robots, automated guided vehicles (AGVs), conveyors, shuttle carts,
pallets and/or other programmable systems that can efficiently move tools or
parts to their intended destinations in a timely manner. These systems are part
of, and are also sub-systems, of the CIM network system already implemented in
the facility.
The third area of materials to be
improved is the inventory of materials and tooling. For the materials, this is
one area where just-in-time philosophy should be seriously considered. Modern
competitive manufacturing tries to avoid carrying any inventory of materials.
For the material-handling systems, all required robots, AGVs, conveyors,
shuttle carts, and pallets must be economically justified and documented. There
are simple equations employed in determining their return on investment (ROI).
This analysis should be conducted and dealer prices and service commitments
compared before purchasing such expensive systems. This is one area where a
modern tool inventory control (TIC) system can be used to facilitate the
management of tools and integrate the database with other company or school
systems. According to Hogan (2000), such a system provides full information on
tool allocation, availability, usage, cost etc. Such a system also provides a
tracking capability and tool quality support efforts in quality standard
requirements.
Improving
Labor component
The importance of improving
manufacturing personnel cannot be overemphasized. A company may have the best
manufacturing system components, but if it does not employ and train the best
workers it may not produce quality products, which are the only things that can
save it from today's stiff competition. Of the so-called Deming’s 14 management
principles, two dealt directly with the worker training issue. One is to
“Institute modern methods of training”, and the other is to “Institute a
constant and vigorous program of education and training” (Fryman, 2002, PP.
8-9). While the former stressed the need to train workers on the philosophy of
quality, the latter emphasized the need for making all workplace training a
continuous and ongoing part of the organization.
Training can be technical, social, ethical, managerial or business. The
whole idea rests on the fact that if workers are improved by the right training
that is targeted to their need, their company’s productivity and quality will
be improved. On the other hand, if they lack proper training on, say, how to
use the company’s software, why drug use is bad, why constant lateness or
absence from work is bad and such likes, then productivity may be reduced.
Workers are the most important
component of all the manufacturing systems. They are the ones who will use
their initiative and other system components to produce the product to the
required specifications and quality. These employees must be sought, hired, and
trained. One of the biggest problems facing employers today is how to tell a
bad employee from a good one. A study of 81,000 people on integrity, work
attitude and drug use by Orion PE System (1999) found that 24.9% of them
admitted to stealing from previous employers, 28.5% admitted to some drug use,
24.0% admitted they had problems with absences in previous jobs, while 30.0%
admitted tardiness in previous jobs. Clearly, no employer who intends to be on
a competitive edge would want to hire such employees.
The more productive manufacturing
companies are those that hire and train their workers in key areas that the
companies know will affect their business. Competent, responsible, and
knowledgeable employees with manufacturing background should be trained on a
continuous basis. Kelley (1998) recommended that such employees must be
flexible so as to perform multiple functions, and will need to be trained to
perform other manufacturing disciplines. The multiplicity of today’s
manufacturing tasks makes training a must for companies who want to be on a
competitive edge.
An Integrated Approach
Although they share some similarities in their
components, modern manufacturing systems are very different from traditional
systems. For example, modern manufacturing systems are very computer-dependent,
operate on highly and complex competitive societies, process newer and harder
materials, and operate in an environmentally sensitive world. As a result,
modern manufacturing systems are more and more perceived as
"closed-loop" systems, which have no room for unnecessary variations
in all their components. Thus, instead of the traditional systems where the
components are separated and on their own, as was the case with islands of
automation of the 1980s, today's manufacturing systems tend to be more
integrated. Any plan intended for any one component will most likely affect the
rest. For example, if a new piece of equipment is installed, it will most
likely affect the material handling system and its arrangement in the factory,
as well as the processes and skill of the workers who will operate the new
machine. See figure 1.
Figure 1.
Components of Manufacturing Systems
One of the main goals in
operating a modern manufacturing enterprise is efficiency. The growth in modern
technology has rendered the manufacturing environment such a complex place that
a more comprehensive planning approach is needed to better compete in today’s
manufacturing industry. Manufacturing systems also have been influenced so much
by modern technology that systematic planning is a must for every manufacturing
enterprise. Therefore, every improvement program should be designed as a
systematic and comprehensive approach.
Due to the increasing and complex
manufacturing challenges of modern industry, knowledge and presence of several
key factors and resources are also necessary to properly do a compressive
planning for improving manufacturing systems. One such resource is the role of
the computer in integrating the increasing activities of a modern facility.
Therefore, the concept of CIM must be established in any facility that is
planning to improve its activities. CIM, by means of its powerful sub-systems
or modules, makes the sharing of common computer data between manufacturing
disciplines and other systems required to produce a product possible. See
Figure 2. But since many manufacturing
companies have different products and processes, it will be helpful if each
company develops its own CIM philosophy, strategy, and plan for implementation
(Kelly, 1998).
Figure 2. Some CIM Sub-Systems
With the CIM environment
established, the system improvement planners must also consider the use of
concurrent engineering philosophy. In today’s highly competitive manufacturing
industry, the concept of concurrent engineering helps companies to rapidly and
efficiently design and manufacture a product in a shorter time cycle.
Concurrent engineering also helps in using forces of change as tools or
resources in organizations and communication, for efficient, fast and
economical product development (Wakil, 1998). Concurrent engineering philosophy
also helps to involve the customer in all phases of the product's development.
A major objective in virtually all manufacturing system development phases
today is the involvement of the customer who will eventually decide whether to
use the end product or not. The customer's input must be sought early in
developing any improvement plan that will affect the product, in order to avoid
any potential problem that may come up later. CIM implementation helps
facilitate this effort.
Moreover, a modern comprehensive
plan for a competitive manufacturing must include the concept of group
technology technology, to fully equip the organization for the tasks ahead. In
the same token, all modern manufacturing techniques, including computer-aided
process planning (CAPP), JIT manufacturing, flexible manufacturing systems
(FMS), computer-aided manufacturing (
Schey
(2000) also emphasized that formal methods of quality assurance must be
established, together with a plan for preventive maintenance of equipment. To
these can be added the company's formal process planning procedures, and
production control tasks such as routing and scheduling practices.
Implications for
Manufacturing Systems Programs
It is no coincidence that the
material presented here is part of what manufacturing systems majors are
learning in manufacturing systems programs all over the
One of the best things professors in
these programs can give to these students is the concept of continuous
improvement. Although this concept has been around for sometime now, it is
something the students will take with them for the rest of their career, if
tailored more specifically to manufacturing systems. Because of the nature of
today’s competitive manufacturing industry, they should be informed that
everything in the system is there to be improved on a continual basis. They
should be taught that their company begins to die the moment they seize to
improve their systems. In the process, they will learn that such improvement
means survival for them and for their employers.
One way to teach students the
concept of improving manufacturing systems is to challenge them with similar
projects while they are still in school. This can be built into the curriculum
so that every student will have the opportunity to experience it. The project
may require students or groups of students to visit a local company, study a
particular process, and then determine how to improve it. Students like such an
outside challenge and many companies will be willing to allow students to visit
and conduct such an assignment.
The above
practice essentially makes manufacturing systems programs more functional in
the communities that they serve. Students in such programs will more easily
relate to the realities of the manufacturing industry relative to the jobs
advertised in their locality when they see them. It also enhances their
preparation. Program educators and job providers will tend to be working
together toward a common goal, since they can now see their commonality more
easily. The result is that the manufacturing programs in the region will be
more robust, and the graduates more educated.
Conclusions
This paper has endeavored to present
the necessity of improving manufacturing systems from a system’s perspective.
In this, due to the nature of the competition facing manufacturers, nothing is
regarded is the “sacred cow” any longer; every thing in the system is subject
to improvement when there is a need for it. The discussions, therefore, touched
all the components or sub-systems of the manufacturing system, namely, equipment and facilities, production methods,
material handling, and labor components.
The
issue of an integrated approach was included, since CIM and its related
philosophies and technologies are all ways of facilitating the system; hence,
it is recommended that all improvements be designed to suit the system in a way
that will bring maximum benefit to the company. It was also recommended that
manufacturing systems’ curricula be designed to include an improvement
component so that every student will learn that principle before entering the
industry where it will be needed for their survival.
References
DeGarmo, E. P., Black, J.
T., & Kohser, R. A. (1997). Solutions manual: Materials and processes in
manufacturing, (8th ed.). Prentice Hall: NJ.
Fryman,
M. A. (2002). Quality and Process Improvement.
Hogan, B. J. (Editor)
(May, 2000) Tool Management System Pays Off. In
Manufacturing Engineering, volume 124, number 5. Pp
157-160.
Kelley, D. G. (1998).
Factory of the Future. In Biekert, R. (Ed.), CIM Technology (pp. 323-
340).
Koenig, D. T. (1994).
Manufacturing Engineering: Principles for Optimization. (2nd. Ed.)
Obi,
S. C. (1999). A Framework for
Implementing Appropriate Manufacturing Systems in
Developing Economies. The Journal of
Industrial Technology, volume 15, number 2,
(PP. 1 – 6).
Schey, J. A. (2000).
Introduction to Manufacturing Processes. (3rd. Ed.).
Mc Graw Hill
Seymour, R. D. (1995). Manufacturing technology
education. In Foundations of Technology Education: 1995 441h Yearbook, Council
on Technology Teacher Education. Glencoe:
Wakil, S. D. E. (1998). Processes and Design for
Manufacturing (2nd edition).
Publishing.
Wright, P. K. (2001). 21st Century Manufacturing,