Unit 4

Managing for Competition

Chapter 14: World Class Manufacturing
Lesson 44 - JIT- JUST-IN-TIME
Learning Objectives

After reading this lesson you will be able to understand

Just-In-Time Manufacturing systems
Seven deadly waste in manufacturing
Japanese Manufacturing technology

JIT- JUST-IN-TIME –an introduction

Just in time is both a philosophy and a set of methods for manufacturing.

The JIT concept of production was introduced in Japan under the name of Kanban.
According to this concept material and components are supplied to the work station just
at the time they are required for use. It otherwise means, whatever materials and
components are needed for a shift are received at the beginning of the shift and converted
into finished goods, leaving nothing to be carried at the end of the shift.. Therefore JIT
emphasizes waste reduction, total quality control and devotion to the customer.

JIT is a logistic approach, wherein the level of inventory is kept at the bare minimum
because they are made to arrive just in time when they are needed to be used. It means
that the various vendors are working in unison with the manufacturing organization as a
single team, dedicated to act in unison, wherein the production and supply schedules are
matched perfectly and operate in absolute synchronized manner.

In the above discussion it can be seen that JIT means handling the inventory in a very
disciplined way. It requires changes in culture. JIT also encompasses the Japanese
managerial characteristics i.e. lifetime employment, implicit control mechanisms,
collective decision making, collective responsibility and holistic concern for employees.
JIT applies to all functions of a company not just the operations.

Now we will make an attempt to define what is JIT.

A definition of JIT could be that,

it is a manufacturing system whose goal is to optimize process and procedures by
continuously pursuing waste reduction and work simplification, improving
timeliness, Quality productivity and flexibility.
And this brings us to the issue of wastes.

So logically speaking what are the wastes?

They are seven kind of wastes according to Shigeo Shingo a recognized JIT authority
and a Engineer at Toyota Motor Company. The table below lists the seven wastes as the
target for continuous improvement in production process.

1. Waste of overproduction.
Eliminate by reducing setup times, synchronizing quantities and timing between
processes, compacting layout, visibility, and so forth. Make only what is needed now.

2. Waste of waiting.
Eliminate through synchronizing work flow as much as possible, and balance uneven
loads by flexible workers and equipment.

3. Waste of transportation.
Establish layouts to make transport and handling unnecessary if possible. Then
rationalize transport and material handling that cannot be eliminated.

4. Waste of processing itself

First question why this part or product should be made at all, then why each process
is necessary. Extend thinking beyond economy of scale or speed,

5. Waste of stocks.
Reduce by shortening setup times and reducing lead times, by synchronizing work
flows and improving work skills, and even by smoothing fluctuations in demand for
the product. Reducing all the other wastes reduces the waste of stocks.

6. Waste of motion,
Study motion for economy and consistency, Economy improves productivity, and
consistency improves quality. First improve the motions, then mechanize or
automate. Otherwise there is danger of automating waste.

7. Waste of making defective products.

Develop the production process to prevent defects from being made so as to
eliminate- inspection. At each process, accept no defects and make no defects. Make
processes failsafe to do this. From a quality process comes a quaiiry product-
automatically.

US companies seek to eliminate the above-mentioned wastes by calling it as Value

Added Manufacturing. It is a method that seeks to eliminate wastes in processing
adhering to the edict that a stage of the process that does not add value to the product for
the customer should be eliminated.

By applying this philosophy many companies are improving their productivity. However
incorporating JIT requires a heavy commitment of time and rigorous discipline upon the
organization. Shingo sys that it took 29 years to implement the JIT system and it will take
most other companies another ten years to obtain similar results

The following sections will cover some of the aspects of JIT and Japanese manufacturing
systems like
• Total Quality Control
• House keeping
• Visual Control
• Andon / Jidoka / Poka Yoka
• Pull coordination and kanban
• Set up time reduction
• Flexibility
• Preventive maintenance
• Purchasing.
•
After a rather fascinating discussion on wastes, it’s time we considered:-

JAPANESE MANUFACTURING TECHNIQUES

There are certain cornerstones in the Japanese manufacturing system according to

Professor Robert W Hall Indiana University.
1. Produce what the customer desires

2. Produce products only at the rate the customer wants them.

3. Produce with perfect Quality.

4. Produce instantaneously-with Zero unnecessary lead time.

5. Produce with no waste of labour, material, or equipment; every move has a

purpose so there is zero idle inventory.

6. Produce by methods that allow people to develop.

Similarly, Richard Schonberger identifies nine simple lessons from the Japanese. These
lessons focus on

1. Management technology
2. JIT production
 3. TQC
4. Behavioral techniques
5. Plant configurations
6. Flexibility
7. Purchasing
8. Self improvement of work quality
9. Striving for simplicity in all things.

Dear friends, we often talk of TQC-but do we really understand what it

signifies.
It’s time we found out.

TOTAL QUALITY EMPHASIS

The term Total Quality Control (TQC) originated with the book by the name, written by
Armand V. Feigenbaum. As applied by the Japanese TQC is a detailed approach to
quality and it relates to every facet of the business.
Total quality control is an effective system for integrating the quality development,
quality-maintenance, and quality-improvement efforts of the various groups in an
organization so as to enable marketing, engineering, production, and service at the most
economical levels which allow for full customer satisfaction.

The content and its essentiality to the achievement of business results make total quality
control a new and important area of management. As a focus of managerial and technical
leadership, total quality control has produced outstanding improvements in product
quality and reliability for many organizations throughout the world Moreover, total
quality control has achieved progressive and substantial reductions in quality costs.

Through total quality control, company managements have been able to deal from
strength and confidence in the quality of their products and services, permitting them to
move forward in market volume and product mix expansion with a high degree of
customer acceptance and profit stability and growth.

Total quality control provides the fundamental basis of positive quality motivation for all
company employees and representatives, from top management through assembly
workers, office personnel, dealers, and service people. And a powerful total-quality-
control capability is one of the principal company strengths for achieving vastly
improved total productivity.

Effective human relations is basic to quality control A major feature of this activity is its
positive effect in building up employee responsibility for, and interest in, product quality.
In the final analysis it is a pair of human hands, which performs the important operations
affecting product quality. It is of utmost importance to successful quality-control work
that these hands be guided in a skilled, conscientious, and quality-minded fashion.

Sound technological methods of Total Quality Control are also basic. A variety of these
methods is now being used. Included are activities for specifying engineering tolerances
in user-oriented terms, accelerated test methods for evaluating component and systems
reliability, classifying quality characteristics, vendor rating methods, sampling-inspection
techniques, process-control techniques, design of quality-control measuring equipment,
computer-based quality data processing, gagging systems, standards establishment,
product-quality evaluation and rating schemes, application of statistical techniques from
X and R charts to designed experiments, and many others.

It is interesting to note that these individual methods have themselves been used as
definitions for quality control over the years. The written and spoken word often finds
quality control defined as some form of sampling inspection, as a portion of industrial
statistics, as reliability work, or as simply inspection or testing. These several definitions
have described only individual parts of, or methods in, an overall quality-control
program. They may have contributed to the confusion with which the term is sometimes
associated in industry.

The terms "quality control" and "quality assurance" have come to have different
meanings in some organizations-each term referring to different aspects of customer
quality –satisfaction activity. TQC programs in their operations include and integrate the
actions involved in the work covered by both the terms.

The Japanese manufacturing houses adopted TQC fully and realized the benefits for
example a company in a five year period improved defect rates by a factor of 25 from
suppliers and a factor of 33 times internally. Other JIT statistics improved as well.
To illustrate another success, consider these comparative levels of quality:-
US companies measure quality levels in terms of percentages i.e. parts defective per
hundred as compared to Japanese who measure in levels of parts defective per million

Let’s now consider the contribution of Deming in the field of TQC.

DEMING’S CONTRIBUTION TO TQC:-

Japanese competitiveness owes and directly relates to American Quality Guru Dr. W.
Edwards Deming who has been closely associated with Japanese quality programs since
1950 when he was invited to address the Union of Scientists and Engineers about
improving the quality of products in industry. He estimated that 85% of the quality
problems are due to management and production systems.

Dr Deming introduced the Plan-Do-Check-Action (PDCA) cycle. Briefly the company

plans a change, does it, checks it whether it is confirming to the plan or not, and,
depending on the results take corrective action or standardize the change or begin the
cycle of improvement. Continuous or never ending improvement requires such circular or
cyclical approach.

Dr Deming propounded a 14 points program for improving the quality leading to

transformation of business in Japan. The basic principles are given below which are
applicable globally and in any industry/business.

1. Create constancy of purpose toward improvement of product and service A com-

pany's role is to stay in business and provide jobs through innovates, research, education,
constant improvement and maintenance, rather than pursuing the singular objective of
making money.

2. Adopt the new philosophy A transformation is required in Indian organizations. A

strong commitment to the philosophical basis of these 14 points is required.

3. Cease dependence on mass inspection Deming says that routine large scale inspection
to improve quality is equivalent to 'planning for defects'. Why pay workers to make
defects and then to correct them? Quality comes not from inspection but from
improvement of the process.

4. End the practice of awarding business on the has is of price tag only The buyer
company must change its policy from lowest initial cost of material purchased to lowest
total cost. Buyers should seek the best quality in a long-term relationship with a single
vendor for anyone item.

5.Improve constantly and forever the system 0f production and service Deming stresses
the importance of continuous improvement or what came to be known as Kaizen.
Quality is built in through improvements in the design of the products, processes and
systems.

6. Institute training There should be basic foundation of training for the managers the
new employee. The greatest waste in India is in not using the abilities of people

7. Adopt and institute leadership As Deming put it: ‘The job of management is not
supervision, but leadership. Quality and productivity cannot come about in a leadership
vacuum' .

8. Drive out fear In order to have improvements in quality and productivity, it is essential
that people feel secure. Fear only gives rise to impaired performance, pad del figures and
lack of initiative. Fear makes people think only in short-term at the cost a long-term
result.

9. Break down barriers between staff areas Various departments/units of an organization

must work in unison as a team towards the organizational goal. Productivity and quality
can come about only when there is this integration and synergy.

10. Eliminate slogans, exhortations, and targets for the work force As Goethe observed,
'Where an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place'. Slogans, posters
and exhortations are directed at the wrong people. The charts and posters take no account
of the fact that the most trouble comes from the system for which the management is
responsible. Also, numerical goals set for people, without a road map to reach the goal,
have effects opposite to the effects sought.

11. Eliminate numerical quotas for the work force and numerical goals for
management According to Deming, a quota is a fortress against improvement of quality
and productivity. The job of management is to replace work standards by knowledgeable
leadership.

12. Remove barriers that rob people of pride workmanship People always want to do a
good job and be proud of it-be they workmen or managers. However, in many
organizations people-whether in management or the shop floor-have become, to
management, a commodity.

13. Encourage education and self-improvement for everyone

14. Put everybody in the company to work to accomplish the transformation

The role of management in terms of providing leadership, designing and implementing

appropriate systems and motivating people comes out clearly from the above discussion.
Principles guiding management of quality are no different.

We have discussed some aspects of TQC and it can be seen that there are four
characteristics of the engineered total quality system that are of particular importance:

First, and most important, it represents a point of view for thinking about the way
quality really works in a modern business company or governmental agency and how
quality decisions can best be made. This point of view is of the major quality activities as
continuous work processes, they start with the customer's requirements and end
successfully only when the customer is satisfied with the way the product or service of
the enterprise meets these requirements.

These are processes in which it is important for quality both how well each person,
each machine, and each organization component works individually and how well they
all work together. In these processes in a manufacturing business, for example, the best
quality-control decision is not merely the historically usual one which is based upon
conformance of the product with certain engineering specifications-important as this is in
itself. It is, more fully, also the decision, which is based upon the satisfactory quality of
the product with reference to total customer expectations.

The second characteristic of the engineered quality system is that it represents the basis
for the deeply thought-through documentation not merely of a thick book of details but
the identification of the key, enduring quality as the integrated people-machine-
information relationships, which makes a particular activity viable and communicable
throughout the firm. It is the specific way in which the manager, the engineer, and the
analyst can visualize what, where, when, why and how of his and her quality work is
making as it affects the total scope of plant or company quality.
Each person can visualize her and his own work assignments and decision making
responsibilities in a quality activity, the quality work and in which he or she has a
relationship, the relevant quality work an made by others, the machine interfaces, and the
information inputs. The systems approach thus represents the way in which quality
becomes a reality for the work force of the plant or company as a living part of working
life.

Third, the quality system is the foundation for making the broader scope of quality
activities of the company realistically manageable because it management and employees
of the plant and company to get their around their customer-requirements and convert it
customer-satisfaction qualities. Moreover, quality systems provide alternatives, under
given quality situations, which provide a management base designed to have the full
participation of human resources of the company, to be measurable, and to have the
feedback of actual results.

The fourth characteristic of total quality system is that it is the systematic engineering
of improvements through quality activities of the company. Here a change in a key point
of quality work any where in the customer to-customer activities, the total quality system
provides framework and discipline so that these individual changes may be engineered
for their degree of improvement of the total quality activity itself.

Let us now focus on how effectively one must organize for quality.

ORGANIZING FOR QUALITY

We have seen that total quality control guides and coordinates the actions of people,
machines, and information across the whole range of key company activities, it is
essential that quality be organized effectively and economically company wide.

There are three considerations in the development and operation of this total quality
organization. The first is the identification and confirmation of the specific quality work
and team work- including the responsibility, authority, accountability, and relationships
for quality-of each of the key individuals and groups in the company and the plant.

The second consideration is the identification and confirmation of areas for the quality-
control function itself so that it may help the company achieve its quality objectives.

The third consideration is the leadership of company and plant management itself in the
establishment and ongoing maintenance of quality organization.

The responsibility for quality in Japanese organizations is exemplified in four features -

in process inspection, visible control, lines stop, and the N-2 technique.
Work in process inspection is used instead of final inspection and is described in latter
chapter. The following comments by Yoshini Takemoto a V.P at Sanyo illustrate the
Japanese approach versus the US approach:

The American Managers were proudly pointing out to me the spacious, well equipped
and well staffed quality inspection section at the end of the assembly line. I wondered
why they needed such an elaborate quality inspection station if they made their products
properly in the first place. I told my workers to properly and carefully complete the
assigned jobs, and not send any slipshod work down the assembly line. In this way we cut
down the defect rate drastically.

Friends, now I would like to focus on how to stop work \ line operation in case
of any problem.

ANDON / JIDOKA

Andon is indication to stop work \ line operation in case of any problem.

Let us consider a few examples:

1. Fire Alarm in an Office.

2. Theft Alarm in a Bank.
3. Machine Breakdown Signal System.
3. Material Shortage Signal from the Assembly line

Visual control communicates required important information to people who need it

It grabs one or more of our senses in order to:

 • Alert us to an abnormality

• Help us recover quickly,

• Promote adherence and prevention

• Enable successful self management

A visual control reduces errors and waste by making problems visible. It identifies the
gap between the standard and actual performance and tells us how to respond.

ARE WE ALREADY USING VISUAL CONTROLS - WHAT ARE THESE?

Jidoka is reducing dependence on human presence/supervision. Jidoka is evolution
towards autonomatiom. In the old days operator handles a large part of work and also
watches the machine most of the time. Now with autonomation there is automatic feeding
systems, automatic processing systems, andon systems and therefore the operator is
assigned to a more challenging job.

House Keeping

It is a process where in everyone in the company is committed to and involved in

up keeping of the workplace and cleaniness of machines, material etc such that
only needed material is kept and its fastest accessibility is assured. .

WHY DO WE NEED HOUSE KEEPING?

It is because
1) employees feel good if the work place is clean
2) searching is avoided
3) time wasted in handling reduced.
4) no unnecessary supplies
5) less rejection/rework
6) better preventive maintenance
7) less equipment downtime
8) more usable space
9) passage ways are neat and clean'
10) abnormalities noticed at a glance
11) eliminates accidents
12) productivity improvement

HOUSE KEEPING is

• Systematic approach to a better workplace.

• Involves arrangement, cleanliness, discipline and maintenance of standards.
• Assigns a place for everything and ensures everything is in its place.
• Everybody’s responsibility
• The starting point of any improvement activity
• Means easy retrieval of information.

"5S" There are 5 Principles of housekeeping, also known as “5S”. It is easy to remember

as C A N D O. The full form is

C Cleanliness (Beiso ).
A Arrangement \ organization (Seiri )
N Neatness (Seiketsu)
D Discipline (Shitsuke)
O Orderliness: a place for every thing and everything in its place (Seiton).
POKAYOKA

Pokayaka is a method of preventing defects and thereby improve quality.

Defects happen in a manufacturing plant

The sources are many for e.g. omitted processing, processing errors, missing and wrong
parts, processing wrong work piece, adjustment error etc. Almost all defects are caused
by human errors. Human errors are usually inadvertent.

Poka yoka devices help to avoid the defects even when inadvertent errors are made.
Pokayoka help build quality into the product. In other words pokayoka is nothing but fool
proofing so that defects don’t occur.

Pokayoka aims at zero defects systems.

QUALITY CIRCLES (QC)

QC was originally developed in Japan as Employee participation program to identify the

various problems which affect quality of the products.

QC are small group activities consisting of 6-12 members from the same work area who
meet regularly for a fixed time to look into the various quality problems, analyses the
problems, seek solutions to the problem and implement the solutions till the problems are
eliminated or reduced drastically. The QC group formation is voluntary. The solutions are
standardized after implementation of the changes. The team gives their presentations
before the Management who suitably reward the team for their efforts.

Here the employees of the company of all level in the organization are trained in the
basic skills such as
• Sampling and Data Collection i.e. Check Sheets
• Brainstorming
• Cause and Effect Diagram
• Pareto Analysis
• Stratification
• Graphs and Charts.
• Histogram
• Scatter Diagram
• Process controls charts. Etc.
The above are the traditional and basic seven tools. These QC tools are used for quality
problems, analysis, solutions and solving their work related problems. Further new seven
tools have emerged for better managerial decisions and building higher quality into the
products for customer delight.

In essence QC is a People Building Philosophy.

It has numerous advantages like

• Quality is improved • Team Building

• Waste is reduced
• There is attitude change
• Cost is reduced
• Safety is improved
• Communications is increased
• Productivity is increased
• Skill improvement
• Increased participation
• Mutual learning
• Problem prevention attitude
• House keeping improved.
• Increased job satisfaction

In India, BHEL started its first Quality Circle at its Hyderabad unit in 1980-81. Since
then QC is been implemented in many industries. The results of Quality Circle movement
in India are encouraging. This is due to the firm commitment, continual support and
guidance of the top and senior mangers to the QC. The concept of QC is also spreading in
the non-industrial sectors such as Hospitals, Banks, educational institutions etc. The
Quality Circle Forum of India has been active in the propagation of knowledge, gained
from experience, about the methodology for starting and establishing QC in the Indian
environment.

Causes
Sub causes
Problem
Area
 PARETO ANALYSIS HISTOGRAM

freq cum freq

STRATIFICATION SCATTER DIAGRAM

O.K. NOT O.K.

CHECK SHEET (For Data Collection) CONTROL CHART

…. …. ….. …… UCL
…. … …. ... CL
… … … ...
… … … ... LCL
… … … ...

TAGUCHI PHILOSOPHY.

Dr Genichi Taguchi a Deming Prize winner and a Engineer realized the

importance of cost associated with poor quality and its impact on corporate
profitability. Taguchi did not confine himself to corporate losses alone but looked
into consideration the losses (due to poor quality) to the society.
 His principle states that in deviation there is an incremental economic loss of geometric
proportion. The cumulative effect of functional variations of various products can be very
great, although these products may just deviate a little from the target value of a
measurable quality characteristic.

Our traditional view has been that there is no negative effect as long as the products /
components are within their respective end specifications. The whole Statistical Quality
Control, with its percentage tolerances and the Upper / Lower Control Limits, is based on
this traditional view. In our Statistical Process Control so far we have seen 3-sigma
control limits and 'percent' defectives. As long as the process is within these, the process
was considered to be 'in control' or 'normal' and it was not to be disturbed. Taguchi,
(contrary to this view) says that the point to consider is the cumulative impact of the
deviations target value. Using the Taylor Expansion Series, Taguchi developed a
mathematical "model in a quadratic function of the deviation of the quality of interest
from its target value. The Taguchi Function is shown in the following figure

L(y) = k (y –m) where,

y = actual measure
m = target value
L = Loss, a function,
k = constant

Taguchi methods of quality control, therefore, involve the on-line and off-line methods.

On-line odds include the use of statistical process control charts amongst others so that
the aspect of red deviations about the target value are taken care of as far as the process
or manufacturing is concerned._ The off-line methods involve market research, product
design and development, and process development.

The tolerances, the key process variables and the overall system need to be so designed
these variations in the end product are minimized. For Taguchi, the variations from the
target values are important, and these variations are to be reduced as much as possible.
While it is necessary to be " rate', it may be better to be 'precise while being inaccurate'
than to be 'accurate but imprecise

For example, between the two hits on the dartboard as shown in Fig below
 xxx

The former be preferred; because, although the darts have missed the bull' s eye, with a
correction in the direction of hit, most of the darts will hit the bull' s eye. This cannot be
said of the more variable process.

Thus, in Taguchi philosophy, the definition of quality is changed from 'achieving

conformance to specifications' to 'minimizing the variability while achieving the target'.

An important aspect of Taguchi philosophy is its linking of the quality of a manufactured

product (total loss generated by the product) to the society. If these variations are to be
minimized then one has to resort to the Design of Experiments (DOE) in order to identify
the factors which are responsible for the variation, to find the relative impact of the
factors on the variability and hence to suitably select a combination of input parameters
to achieve.

Quality design is another area in which Taguchi departs from traditional quality
control. Focusing on customers, Taguchi methods place a premium on careful product
design. Thus in addition to quality in production, Taguchi emphasizes quality control in
four other areas i.e. (1) product planning (2) product design (3) process design (4)
production service after purchase.. Products are designed so that they are robust – that is,
so they function under a wide range of environmental conditions without faltering.

With that, we have come to the end of today’s discussions. I hope it has been an
enriching and satisfying experience.