Evaluating manufacturing system design and performance using the manufacturing system design decomposition approach

Abstract

Abstract This paper uses the Manufacturing System Design Decomposition (MSDD) approach to contrast the design of the manufacturing systems at two North American automative component manufacturing plants. Instead of characterizing a manufacturing system on name alone as “mass” or “lean,” a system should be described in terms of the achievement of the manufacturing system requirements. The following analysis quantifies the performance of a “lean” plant relative to the performance of a “mass” plant based on the achievement of the system design requirements that are decomposed by the MSDD.