Production Management Methods Research Articles

L'industrie britannique des constructions mécaniques s'est-elle américanisée?

Abstract One of the most common explanations given for the economic decline of the United Kingdom after 1945 is the failure of British entrepreneurs to adopt mass methods of production and management. The example of the British metal-works industry does not confirm this model. The different Labour governments developed incentives to push British companies towards mass production and American management methods. The study also shows that British industrialists adopted American techniques selectively, and defined flexible production methods anticipating on those which were later to become famous when developed by the Japanese. The practical impact of the Américanisation programme thus stayed limited.

Production planning and control in a virtual One-of-a-Kind Production company

Today, the manufacturing industry, particularly the OKP (One-of-a-Kind Production) industry, tends to be lean, agile and global. This tendency leads to a new concept of a virtual company that consists of several subproduction units geographically dispersed in the world as branches, joint ventures and subcontractors. Many OKP companies, such as those in the heavy industry, e.g., a shipbuilding company, have become virtual companies. For these virtual companies, traditional production control and management systems, methods and theories do not satisfy their needs for production planning and control. This paper presents the basic concepts and methods, a reference control structure, and a reference company architecture to cope with the particular problems for production planning and control (PPC) in a virtual OKP company. These particular problems to be discussed in this paper include: (1) modelling of evolutionary and concurrent product development and production under a continuous customer's influence; (2) real-time monitoring and control of the production progress in virtual OKP; (3) a flexible or dynamic company control structure to cope with uncertainties in the market; (4) adaptive production scheduling structure and algorithms to cope with uncertainties of production state in virtual OKP; (5) modelling of production states and control system in virtual OKP; and (6) the reference architecture for a virtual OKP company.

A scheduling system for IC packaging industry using STEP enabling technology

The packaging technologies of electronic elements have matured in supporting the development of electronic products, which tend to get smaller in size with higher capacity and resolution, In order to increase packaging quality and reliability as well as to reduce the packaging cycle time, not only advanced packaging processes and techniques but also efficient production management methods need to be developed. Among production management, scheduling is one of the most important tasks to ensure the performance of competitive manufacturing capability, This research develops a computer-aided scheduling system (CASS) for integrated circuit (IC) packaging industry. The standard for the exchange of product model data (STEP) enabling technology is adopted to model and implement the system. The effort aims to achieve integration of engineering applications by standardizing the modeling and the use of product data. This paper uses IDEF0 to model the IC packaging scheduling process and EXPRESS language to define the data models. The IC packaging scheduling system is implemented in an integrated environment using the object-oriented language (C++) and an object-oriented database. The ST-Developer is used as the kernel to interface the application language, the database, and the EXPRESS data models. The architecture of this integrated implementation environment is not only effective for scheduling task but also useful in general applications for product design, analysis, and production planning.

Managing seasonal fluctuations in demand. Practice and experience of selected industrial enterprises

Abstract Principles and methods of production management only seldom address the issue of seasonal variation. Yet, many industrial enterprises are confronted with heavy fluctuations over the year. This article reports on an industrial study of methods developed and applied in six Danish industrial enterprises. The methods represent different approaches to the management of seasonal variation and they often challenge traditions and call for a mental shift on the part of both management and workers.

JIT: Some Lessons for Improving Productivity

Many manufacturers have attempted to improve the productivity of their facilities without much success. The Japanese, on the other hand, have recently achieved significant improvements in productivity by implementing JIT. There are several reasons for the Japanese success. First, JIT adheres to well‐established concepts and methods of production and operations management. Second, JIT is a holistic approach to productivity that directs attention to all resources involved in producing a product, and to all factors affecting their utilization. Third, JIT avoids many obstacles to productivity, in addition to utilizing resources efficiently. Fourth, JIT focuses on shopfloor design and operations where resources are primarily affected. Manufacturing managers can learn several useful lessons for improving productivity from the Japanese experience.

Price - an Extremely Important Lever of Economic Management

The conversion to the new methods of production management is indissolubly connected with perfecting the practice of planned price formation. The previous prices were conditioned by excessive centralized regulation of the productive activity of enterprises, and therefore they do not correspond to the tasks of our economic development. The problem of price arises in a new way during the economic reform, the expansion of the economic independence of enterprises, and the strengthening of material incentives.