What is World Class Manufacturing?

Put simply World Class manufacturers are those that that demonstrate best practise according to their industry standards. There are a number of categories called “competitive qualities” that they must compete to be at the top of in order for world class manufacturing to be achieved.

Competitive Qualities

The Competitive Qualities are as follows:

-Quality
-Price
-Delivery Speed
-Delivery Reliability
-Flexibility
-Innovation

Becoming a leader in these qualities should be an aim for all companies. However trying to compete in every single one of them is unrealistic for the majority.

Techniques involved

The following techniques and principles are usually undertaken when trying to compete.

-Make to order
-Streamlined flow
-Small lot sizes
-Families of parts
-Doing it right first time around
-High employee involvement
-Multi Skilled Employees

Higher productivity is achieved in implementing strategies that strive to eliminate waste and improve operations. Speed is also to be looked at within world class manufacturing. It is not just about making the process speedier to get to the finished product. It is about making the process speedier to get, without any quality compromise, to the finished product.

Issues faced with World Class Manufacturing

Capacity driven manufacturing dominates western thinking. World Class Manufacturing principles are process driven and this difference can sometimes cause conflict. Many people do not like change and want to do things the way they have always done them. Companies must involve their employees when planning for change so as to try to eradicate this problem.

Questions to ask yourself to find out of your company is world class

World Class manufacturing standards vary from industry to industry. These questions should be fairly generic and are only given as a guide.

1. Do you regularly ask your customers for feedback about your service and then seek to improve it?
2. Do you have an active lead time reduction group? If not why not!
3. Have you laid out your machinery in such a way to make the distance between sequential operations as short as possible?
4. Do you have an on-going educational process for new staff to learn from and old ones to keep up to date?
5. Have you taught your entire staff basic problem solving techniques?
6. Do you have a process that quickly evaluates all feedback and suggestions from your staff?
7. Do you monitor your overall equipment down time and seek to minimise it?

If a company seeks to be the best then they must consider these principles carefully.

For more information see world class manufacturing