MANAGING MANUFACTURING ACTION PLANS

Abstract

In recent years, we have seen a myriad of action plans (management tools and "best practices") that are available to transform the way organisations work. The action plans could be improvement programmes such as Total Quality Management (TQM), Just in Time (JIT) or specific tools like Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED) for reducing tooling set-up time on a work centre. Frequently, these action plans will have an impact on more than one area of performance. This makes it increasingly hard for manufacturing managers wishing to improve their operation to identify the range of options available and decide on which to pursue. This research has sought to address this problem by developing an "action planning handbook" comprising a software tool that offers a database and network which shows the inter-relationship of the action plans and the objectives. The tool has been developed based on Burbidge's Connectance Concept. The database and network is intended to help managers to: (1) get an overall view of the action plans for a particular objective; (2) to see the inter-relationships (if any) among the action plans; and (3) select the most appropriate action. This paper describes the construction of the database and software tool, and concludes with the findings of the application of these in industrial cases.