Main Aspects and Features of Production Management - Coursework Example

Production Management Using lean production systems, pioneered by the Toyota Motor Company, production processes can be streamlined by eliminating wastes, improving the process functioning and achieve better productivity and quality of products, and improved profits. This paper illustrates one such application of lean production tool to textile production process involved in production of readymade garments, with an aim to identify and eliminate wastes (muda). This is accomplished through application of 5-Why analysis to validate the identified waste, and value stream mapping technique to the process map of the production unit to improve the process and eliminate or minimize costs. Introduction to production management According to Hill (1991), ‘The production/operations management (POM) task is concerned with the transformation process which takes inputs and converts them into outputs, together with the various support functions closely associated with this basic task’ (cited Brown, 2000; p.7). Such transformation processes can be applied to three main categories, materials, customers and information. Brown (2000) describes that Production Management encompasses the most vital activities of production, beginning from and including, planning and design, production processes of goods and services, and also effective integration of marketing, finance, human resources management and strategy in order to enable a business to enter and compete with both new and existing markets. In other words, a business’s success and sustainability largely depend on the operational capabilities, including efficiency and quality. Production management is a comprehensive phenomenon including distinct and complex activities that need to be performed in order to achieve a firm’s goals. Besides the processes itself, there is a strategic aspect linked to the production management process, without which aligning production processes with the firm’s actual goals, tracking performance of the firm and its processes, and gaining profits become difficult or even impossible. The entire production management can be illustrated in the following manner: Each of these activities requires planning in great detail. The present discussion will be focused on production process in a normal readymade clothes manufacturing unit. Although the focus is on production process, it should be noted that production process is further dependent on the other functions, i.e. strategic planning and tactical planning. For instance, the raw materials required for the production process are procured from different external suppliers. In case of readymade clothes manufacturing, the raw materials required include yarn, dying and printing equipment and machinery, different types of sewing machines, cutting machine, ironing machine, knitting machine, stain remover and packaging materials like plastic sheets and cardboard boxes. Hence, maintaining a supply chain becomes very significant in logistics functions of manufacturing and service industries, especially from a quality perspective, and hence the performance of the firm; challenges in supply chain systems have also grown proportionately. The strategic planning of logistics operations should include all drivers of supply chain systems such as inventory, transportation, facilities, information etc. (Chopra & Meindi, 2004). Next, tactical functions including capacity, location of manufacturing, transportation, sales mechanisms etc will help in production management process. The actual production planning and control mechanisms involve production process, work management, storage of produced goods, quality assurance systems (Chase, 2006). Production process map In Six Sigma terminology, a process map is a graphic representation of a business activity, showing the sequence of tasks using a modified version of standard flowcharting symbols (Pyzdek, 2003; p.252). Process maps help in understanding the process design principles and can aid as effective tools for future and continuous improvement. In a broad perspective, the process map of any production unit includes suppliers, inputs, process, outputs and customers; in quality measurement methodology and Six Sigma, it is termed as SIPOC. Although this is at the broader level, the same applies at micro level of every step in the production management process as it provides a template for defining a process or a business activity, and a generalized theme for understanding the scope and boundaries of the process (Rasmusson, 2006). SIPOC, in general, may be represented as below: (Adopted from Ramusson, 2006; p.4) Inputs to every process are those material, equipment and/or effort that cause the process to start. The resultants of these inputs after the completion of the process form the outputs. Process map in discussion is that of production unit of a textile manufacturing firm. In case of textile manufacturing, the inputs of a production unit include yarn and different machinery used for making fabric; the fabric then becomes the input for final product. The process in one of the known firms involves bleaching and dyeing of the fabric, compacting, printing designs on the compacted fabric, stitching the fabric to make different types of ready-to-wear garments, and finally packing the readymade garments appropriately for dispatch. The same has been illustrated below in the form of a process map. This process map illustrates various activities undertaken to produce ready-to-wear garments, the end products aimed for customers seeking such garments. In this production process, firstly the raw material i.e. yarn procured from outside suppliers is passed through weaving machines and converted to fabric. The fabric is then bleached and/or dyed in different colours to obtain different coloured fabric. This fabric is then passed through the compacting process to provide firmness and draping properties to the fabric, which is otherwise very fragile in nature. This process provides volume and firmness to the fabric (Miller & Drillon, 2001). The compacted fabric is then imprinted with required designs and sent for cutting, stitching and finishing activities. The stitched garment is then packed in plastic wraps and cardboard boxes to be sent for delivery to sales outlets. This process map is a generalized representation of the activities involved in ready-to-wear garment production; however, each activity/process comprises of various sub processes/activities and differ in every firm based on individual quality, productivity, skills and investment factors. Identification of potential problems (wastes/bottlenecks) The process map evidently explains various steps involved in this ready-made garments manufacturing unit. The process is well structured in terms of effecting complete transformation of the inputs to desirable outputs. When this process is integrated with the strategic and tactical functions of the firm, optimum profits are ideally desired. However, the external and internal environment does not remain the same; and moreover, the idiosyncratic nature of businesses with changing needs of the customers, advancements in technology, conformance to the environment’s requirements need to be adhered to by any business that aims to sustain competitiveness and continue to make profits. For this, the firm will have to continuously relook at its strategies and processes. The best and most adopted methodology to improve manufacturing profits is the ‘Lean Manufacturing process’ (Carriera, 2005). The reason for some businesses’ inability to achieve sustainability is their lack of understanding of the changing market demands and/or cost patterns. For both these issues, lean manufacturing methodology is extremely useful. The lean manufacturing methodology is an invention of the Japanese, and later adopted by the Western businesses. This concept was originally known as the Toyota Production system, pioneered by Eiji Toyoda and Taiichi Ohno at Toyota Motor Company (Jimmerson, 2007). This method focuses on manufacturing only those products that are needed by the customer, achieving this task in minimum time, minimum labour, minimum space, minimum cost along with highest quality. Highest quality of products provides a competitive edge to the business in any market; however, investing highly for this reason may or may not provide optimum profit margins. Hence, reducing or eliminating actions that are not really required can help in saving some costs, which can be diverted towards high quality production. Every business comprises of work that adds value to its end customers and/or its products, and work that adds no value or very little value. Irrespective of the scope of value the work adds, it entails costs. Hence, value adding work directly impacts the customer, and non value adding work, not only has least or no impact on the customer, but also consumes effort, expenses for labour, raw material, space, equipment and time. The non value adding entities are considered as ‘waste’ and elimination of wastes can improve the production process and profits to great extent; this process is called as ‘value stream mapping’ (VSM) and is one of the main tools in implementing lean manufacturing process (D & D.E. Lighter, 2009). As quoted by Rother and Shook (1998), VSM is a key tool for understanding the flow of material and information, and seeing the manufacturing process (cited in Morgan & Liker 2006; p.69). VSM helps in studying the series of steps involved in transformation of material along with identification of wastes, thus shifting to a better future state vision that can be translated to an action plan. Identification of value-add processes and non value-add processes is the main principle of implementing VSM. Let us identify the steps that directly impact the customer, and those that do not directly impact the customer. The wastes in this manufacturing process are the first two steps, i.e. collection of raw material from suppliers and conversion to fabrics using various machines. The inputs in this transformation include yarn, knitting machines, and effort. The reason for classifying this step as a waste is that the process of making fabric has no value add to the end customer, and hence waste or muda. In addition, this step also entails potential for overproduction, waiting, conveyance, and inventory wastes. The end customer is only interested in good quality garment at minimum price. It can be argued that the other activities like bleaching, dyeing and compacting also could be potential wastes as they too involve huge costs. In this perspective, ready compacted fabric can be procured from external vendors. However, in the present situation this is not suggested because the actual cost involved in bleaching and compacting processes is quite high. These processes require huge investment, space, machinery, and labour all of which already exist in the current process (Miller & Drillon, 2001). Moreover, considering the huge investments, the supplier costs and inventory management costs also could be quite high, and hence is not advisable to consider these activities as waste in the current situation. Further, a root cause analysis was performed to validate the findings on non-value add processes using the 5-Why technique as shown below: Proposed changes Good quality garment at minimum price for the customer, and high productivity with maximum profits for the firm can be achieved through eliminating waste, as identified earlier. However, elimination of the identified waste needs to be replaced with better value stream of processes that yield the desired results. For example, in the present situation, eliminating the process of collecting yarn, investing in knitting machines and conversion to fabric through effort and time need to be replaced by ready supply of fabric. This ready supply of fabric will eliminate costs incurred on supplies of yarn, investment and maintenance costs on machinery, and labour cost, as well as time. However, reliable supplier of desired quality fabric needs to be integrated into the system which calls for separate inventory and transportation costs. The space requirement for storage of fabric supplies will be much less compared to that required for fabric making. In addition to this, shrinkage testing along with colour fastness of the supplied fabric need to be incorporated into the process, after bleaching and dyeing. New process map In lieu of the previous procedure, implementing the newly identified procedure process map typically looks like as drafted below: Value Stream Mapping helps in identification of areas for improvement, which in lean method are referred to as bottlenecks. This process, although looks simple using process map, involves many degrees of gradation, and produces promising results when accomplished through team involvement. Team involvement yields better results because it attracts more information on wastes and bottlenecks from different perspectives, which can later be evaluated for amount of waste. Quantifying these bottlenecks and wastes (muda) helps in measuring or estimating profitability of the new process, even before its implementation. In this process, each team member ideally evaluates each step for its value-add to the end customer in different aspects. After identification and measurement of the waste, improvement options can be suggested through root cause analyses. This entire process requires measurement of existing cycle time (average time required to perform a specific activity), estimation of new cycle time, calculation of overall savings from eliminated waste, unnecessary motion, conveyance, improved flow, and process time (D & D.E Lighter, 2009). Conclusions In conclusion, process maps are effective tools to determine the effect of different activities and their value add to the process output and the end customer. Implementation of lean production methods help in eliminating the wasteful activities, thereby improving the profitability of business. Profitability through lean methods may be attained in the form of reduced costs, reduced production time and improved quality and productivity. For this, the most effective tool is value stream mapping that helps in identifying all the value adding and non value adding activities, and visualizing as well as estimating the value of entire production process after elimination of non value adding activities. Hence, value stream mapping provides a good starting point for any enterprise to pave its way into continuous improvement through innovation. References Brown, S. (2000). Strategic operations management. Elsevier, Great Britain. Carreira, B. (2005). Lean manufacturing that works: powerful tools for dramatically reducing waste and maximizing profits. New York: AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. Chase. (2006). Operations Management for Competitive Advantage. 11th Ed. Tata McGraw-Hill, New York. Jimmerson, C. (2007). A3 Problem Solving for Healthcare: A Practical Method for Eliminating Waste. Productivity Press, New York. Lighter, D and Lighter, D.E. (2009). Advanced Performance Improvement in Health Care: Principles and Methods. Jones & Bartlett Publishers, U.S.A. Miller, J.S and Drillon, M. (2001). Magnetism: molecules to materials. Wiley-VCH, Germany. Morgan, J.M and Liker, J.K. (2006). The Toyota product development system: integrating people, process, and technology. Productivity Press, New York. Pyzdek, T. (2003). The Six Sigma handbook: a complete guide for green belts, black belts, and managers at all levels. 2nd ed. McGraw-Hill Professional, New York. Rasmusson, D. (2006). The SIPOC Picture Book: A Visual Guide to the SIPOC/DMAIC Relationship. Oriel Incorporated, U.S.A. Read More