Guiding Principles

The factory of the future is a service provider. Fast, precise, flexible. At even lower cost. The key is how to deal with time. With these as the critical factor, manufacturers need:

• A time-optimized factory
• Supply chain oriented production
• Balanced production systems (Theory-of-Constraints)

Organizing Production

What has been a perfect fit in the past might turn out to be a problem in the future. Customer requirements change; new technologies proliferate; Make becomes buy or vice versa. Appropriate organizational structures are instrumental for smooth production processes without waste.

• Factory segmentation
• Partially autonomous, self-controlling units
• Flexibility to change

Process design (Lean Production)

Production Processes need to cope with demand variability and highly dynamic environments. Output should not vary. Processes themselves should create as little fluctuation and uncertainty as possible. The simpler and straighter they are designed, the better.

• Flow-oriented factory layout
• Optimized value-add processes
• Lean production (Six Sigma)
• Qualification of employees

Production planning & control

The reign of chaos creates negative effects such as time pressure, waste and dissatisfaction. Production planning & control proves its value by smoothly running production processes and creating desired outputs – reliably and with less need for oversight:

• Forward-looking capacity and material planning
• Customer focused order management
• Smart management of constraints (Conwip, Kanban)
• Employee qualification