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Picking Up the Pace For Profit Improvement
Cycle
time — the start-to-finish period required to manufacture an item — is a key
element in productivity and profit. Reducing cycle time while maintaining
quality leads to higher productivity and higher profit.
Cycle time reduction (CTR) is an approach to streamlining the flow of work
through the entire manufacturing process, taking care to separate activities
of people from progress of the product. People may be very busy but if their
activities add no value to the product, their efforts do not contribute to a
rapid cycle time.
Commitment to Simplicity
A key factor in picking up speed in manufacturing is a commitment to
simplifying processes, according to a study conducted by the Cincinnati
chapter of the Massachusetts-based Center for Quality Management (CQM).
The CQM study focused on CTR efforts in seven companies, including four
manufacturers. These included:
- A metal fabrication plant
that reduced its cycle time to five days from its previous period of six
to 12 weeks
- A producer of safety lighting
equipment that cut its numbers from 55 days to 34.3 days
- A maker of beverage
dispensers that achieved a 40 percent reduction
- A manufacturer of hospital
beds that reported a 33 percent improvement in its welding time
Process simplification techniques in the CQM study sought to remove waste and
reduce complexity. Waste was defined as steps that don’t add value,
duplication of duties, inefficient use of floor space, excess inventory, and
stalled work.
Reducing complexity took the form of standardized hardware, streamlined bills
of material, limitations on customer change orders, consolidation of
suppliers, and application of cleanliness and order standards spelled out in
the visual management system.
‘Trystorming’
One of the companies in the study called this tactic "trystorming,"
which CQM defined as "a close cousin of brainstorming," that
focuses on generating experience instead of ideas "without in-depth and
time-consuming analysis to quickly find the ones that work."
Batch size was a key consideration for manufacturers in the study, in which
methods emphasized use of cellular workstations that could operate without
additional product handling between operations.
Companies seeking to reduce cycle times often go for quick, inexpensive
solutions rather than perfect answers. Using this approach in what the CQM
study calls "multiple spins," companies keep trying and discarding
ideas until they find one that works for them.
The study stresses the importance of senior management commitment to CTR success,
to ensure adequate resources to meet goals, and those goals need to be
identified before the project begins.
Preliminary Steps
Companies in the study targeted their objectives with the help of tools like
process mapping and value chain mapping and such straightforward techniques
as timing the process or videotaping the process for later analysis.
Also, the companies trained their employees in the skills needed to carry out
their part of the project. And they made formal efforts to communicate progress
in meeting goals using charts and graphs, electronic displays, and daily
reports.
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