Skip to main content

Manufacturing Systems Foundations of World-Class Practice (1992) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:

Time as a Primary System Metric
Pages 166-172

The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.


From page 166...
... The traditional view is that cost, quality, and time are the important elements for assessing manufacturing performance. Here it is argued that properly managing time will ensure that the other two metrics fall in line.
Read the entire page →
From page 167...
... On the factory floor, we speak of defect levels, yields, or rework rates.
Read the entire page →
From page 168...
... is always a benefit; cutting costs is not. Consider for example, the consequences of reduced staffing in a pilot production facility, thereby unwittingly creating a bottleneck in the product introduction process.
Read the entire page →
From page 169...
... because they have replaced a phased approach in which the activities of manufacturing engineers follow those of the product designers by an overlapping approach: Cross-functional teams are established early in the process, allowing preliminary information created by the designers to be assessed by manufacturing engineers. As a result, the overall product introduction interval is shortened, leading to lower development costs and a more manufacturable product possessing higher quality.
Read the entire page →
From page 170...
... On the factory floor the arrival rate at a given stage may fluctuate for any number of reasons for example, arrivals from upstream stages that are not in phase, problems encountered at the preceding stage, equipment failure, and random batching. The service rate is affected by problems experienced with the equipment, variable setup times, lack of clear instructions, or lack of operator skills.
Read the entire page →
From page 171...
... Reducing the interval by reducing variability requires that the sources of this variability be systematically eliminated. This requires reducing rework rates and machine downtimes, smoothing the flow in a manufacturing line by reducing batch sizes and by appropriate sequencing, devising approaches to minimizing shortages of materials, improving operator skills, ensuring that bills of material are accurate, or improving the accuracy of storeroom on-hand balances.
Read the entire page →
From page 172...
... Also, just as short manufacturing intervals are facilitated by total quality control, so rapid product introduction depends on the quality of underlying processes. Finally, just as engineers are essential to just-in-time and total quality improvements on the shop floor, so are they essential to engineering the other systems.
Read the entire page →

Key Terms

  • product introduction
  • factory floor
  • service rate
  • manufacturing interval
  • arrival rate

  • shop floor
  • reducing variability
  • average throughput
  • expensive machine
  • rapid product

  • foregoing discussion
  • introduction process
  • operator skills
  • manufacturing line
  • total quality

  • capacity utilization
  • manufacturing engineers
  • rework rates
  • move ahead
  • manufacturing facility

  • reduce variability
  • improving operator
  • following sequence
  • organizing manufacturing
  • feeder lines

  • excellent metric
  • thereby unwittingly
  • requires careful
  • industrial engineering
  • ultimate detector


    • This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
    More information on Chapter Skim is available.