When more is less: A minimalist architecture for manufacturing

Abstract

To have recorded somewhere, instant by instant, every detail of the operation of a manufacturing system - what more could management want? ‘What less?’ asks Ramchandran Jaikumar, who contends that the data collection capabilities of modern, advanced technology-based manufacturing systems, especially when highly and tightly integrated, transcend the analytical capabilities of manufacturing management. Arguing that management has, in documented specifications and procedures, all of the information it needs about ‘things that go right’, Jaikumar proposes a comprehensive new architecture for manufacturing premised on the collection only of data related to exceptions, that is, ‘things gone wrong’. Dubbed by him Minimalism, this architecture by design elicits and exploits synergies among inventory management, quality and production control, and learning from the management of disruptions. Its adoption has invariably enabled plants to ‘do more, better, with less’.