The Revolution of

Just-In-Time (JIT) and

Lean Manufacturing
 The essence of the JIT revolution and
Lean Manufacturing
• Try to reduce the system operational inefficiencies and the
resulting waste by identifying the sources of these inefficiencies
and working proactively to eliminate them as much as possible.
• In the emerging philosophy, inventories should be carefully
controlled and they should not function as the mechanism for
accommodating the system inefficiencies => Just-In-Time (JIT)
• The aforementioned effort should be an ongoing process
towards continuous improvement rather than one-time/shot
effort.
Targeting the sources of inefficiency
– input
• unreliable quality of raw material
• unreliable delivery times

– operation
• unreliable processes in terms of
– required processing times
– process outcome
• complex interacting process flows
• long set-up times
• unreliable (irresponsive and irresponsible) personnel

– output
• Highly variable production requirements in terms of
– production volume, and
– production scope
 JIT enabling factors and practices
• Emphasis on quality at both the process and the supply side by promoting
– Statistical Process Control (SPC) theory and practice
– Quality certification programs
– Deployment of stable automated processes and foolproof practices (like
checklists and machines gauges) to guarantee the desired performance
– Employee empowerment and knowledge management (quality circles)
• “Tightening” of the supply chain by promoting
– Long-lasting and trustful relationships between the different parties in the supply
chain
– Timely and reliable information flow across these parties that takes advantage of
modern IT technologies, like
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), and e-commerce practices
• Real-time communications and global positioning systems
– Promotion of vendor owned and managed inventory practices that
• Establish economies of scale and protection to variability through pooling
• Enhance the demand visibility across the entire supply chain.
 JIT enabling factors and practices (cont.)
• Simplification of the process flows by promoting cellular manufacturing
practices
– Dedication of separate production cells to product families with similar
processing requirements
– U-shaped layouts for facilitating employee sharing
– Employee cross-training for more flexible and higher utilization
• Set-up time reduction through
– The adoption of cellular manufacturing
– Externalization of set-up times
– Employment of flexible processes and pertinent auxiliary equipment like
pertinent fixtures
– Part standardization
• Focus on repetitive manufacturing and promote the establishment of stable
production rates through
– Smoothing of the aggregate production requirements by appropriate quota setting
– Pertinent sequencing of the final assembly to support a desired product mix
– Use of buffer capacity (planned overtime) to protect against slippages from the
target production rates
– Component standardization
 Institutionalizing the JIT practice
through the KANBAN-based
Production Authorization Mechanism
Station 1 Station 2 Station 3

Remarks:
• The KANBANS at each station cap the WIP at that station and they offer a natural
mechanism for reacting to various disruptions taking place in the system operation.
• In particular, production at each station is “pulled” as a result of the downstream
activity rather than “pushed” by an MPS-generated schedule.
• The KANBANS at each station should be set at a level that enables production
at the target rate
• A safe approach to set the KANBAN level at each station is by setting it initially to
the “historical” WIP level, and subsequently decrease it incrementally while
observing its impact on the production rate
• Frequent KANBAN changes are ineffective, since the production rate of the line is
rather insensitive to these changes, and they should be avoided
 From KANBAN to CONWIP
Station 1 Station 2 Station 3 FGI

Why?
• It maintains the WIP cap but at the same time it offers more operational flexibility than
KANBAN.
• The unrestricted flow of WIP within the line enables better utilization of the (shifting)
bottleneck, and therefore, higher throughput.
• Less stress for the line operators since it enables them to work at the “natural pace” of the line.
• It enables more flexible scheduling of the line, since in the CONWIP operational context,
WIP is interpreted more generally as some aggregate amount of workload loaded into
the line (even measured in time-units, rather than number of parts) – new parts are pulled from
an available “work backlog” according to a pertinent set of dispatching rules.
• Easier to analyze and parameterize through the theory of closed-queueing networks.
• Remark: While the above features of CONWIP mitigate the rigidity of the KANBAN-based
shop-floor control, its “pull” nature still implies that it requires stable target production rates
in order to function well, and therefore, it is appropriate for repetitive manufacturing contexts.