Page 356 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

316 Chapter Ten

• Frequent information and data loss and incompatible data transmission
formats
• Poor or inadequate communications
• Poor project and process management
• Market complexity (number of product types, product complexity,
supply chain complexity)
• Market uncertainty or turbulence

10.3.2 Manufacturing or Production Process

Manufacturing (also known as production) involves all the activities that are
used to transform raw materials and add value to them, in a series of steps,
to bring them to a state where they will be purchased by end-customers.
Each type of operation requires certain types of equipment and may be
highly automated or mostly manual. The processes may operate on a few
product types in large volume or have a high variety with small quantities of
each product type. Scheduling of product flows through the production
processes is important in order to produce items on a timely basis for
customers. In addition, the equipment needed in manufacturing and regular
maintenance activities are required to keep them in good operating condition
and minimize downtime due to unanticipated failures. Manufacturing holds
a special place in society as the primary means whereby prosperity is
generated. As the primary engine for prosperity, it has also been recognized
by economists that manufacturing productivity or efficiency is a key
ingredient for long-term societal well being.

There are several common types of manufacturing processes:
• Job shop
• Cellular manufacturing
• Batch flow shop
• Line flow shop
We discuss these in detail.

Job Shop
A job shop consists of an arrangement of workstations, usually by function
or by the type of process they perform. Job shops generally produce a wide
variety of parts in low volume. Based on the operations required, each part
type has a routing that may not be defined until the actual production time.
This dynamic routing allows machines to be selected based on availability,
since some operations can often be performed on more than one machine.
Job shops are still the most common type of manufacturing: It is estimated