Productivity Techniques: An Insight into Flow Manufacturing

The philosophy and methods of flow manufacturing are being introduced quickly across the globe and a manufacturing company, in any industry, cannot hope to be successful long-term without using flow methods. Many companies introduced flow in the 1990s, and entire industries today re largely converted automotive, beating and air conditioning, electronics. Other industries are just getting started. Opportunities still abound in service and non-manufacturing environments, like financial services, software development, healthcare and government. Practitioners and students of flow manufacturing are frequently disappointed to find that there is little practical, down-to-earth information available on the subject, although certainly there are many books available for the reading. Most of he publications available today are either highly philosophical, obscure, or just plain difficult to apply. General concepts and case histories are interesting, but at the end of the day, most people are looking for something they can use. Is it possible to create a cookbook of flow manufacturing formulas and techniques that can be adapted easily to any manufacturing environment? Probably not. If anything, we have found that each company, each plant, is unique in many ways: people, products, processes, culture, systems, history, markets. “One size fits all” clothing usually don’t fir very well. Paradoxically, the best flow implementations take place when the teams, team leaders and mentors understand the basics well and then adapt them to the specific environment and intelligence and common sense. Implementations that tend not to go well are those that try to apply a predefined formula. Outside mentors or consultants can help you get up the learning curve more quickly and can help keep you on the road to success. Ultimately, however, you’ll have to do it yourself. We hope that you find this book interesting, useful and a practical resource on your flow manufacturing journey. Let us know how you’re doing.