Quick Response

or Agile
Manufacturing

Today's theater of competition

for manufacturing firms is
speed not only speed of
delivery, but of concept, design
and production. New doors
open for those who can get
products to market before the
competition, and success
hinges on the ability to respond
quickly.

Quick Response Manufacturing

(QRM) is a companywide strategy
to cut lead times in all phases of
manufacturing and office
operations. It can bring your
products to market more quickly
and secure your business
prospects by helping you
compete in a rapidly changing
manufacturing arena.

It will increase
profitability by reducing
nonvalueadded time,
cutting inventory and
increasing return on
investment.

The benefits of QRM are a) Reduce lead times

throughout your
organization
b) Decrease your
manufacturing costs
c) Increase your market
share

d) Fill customer orders

faster
e) Boost product quality
f) Introduce new products
rapidly
g) Eliminate waste and
inefficiency
h) Secure your
manufacturing future

The phrases "Efficient

Consumer Response" in
the food industry and "Quick
Response" in the clothing
industry have been used to
describe similar features of
Agile Manufacturing

Conventionally, agile means fast

moving. Agility means an extension
to flexibility. Flexibility is the ability to
respond rapidly and adapt to
changes. It includes dimensions of
volume, product, process mix,
delivery and operations. But agility
goes beyond flexibility and merges
the components of flexibility, quality,
cost and reliability.

Agility implies being

flexible with high
quality, low cost ,
superior service and
greater reliability

Agile or Quick response

Manufacturing means production
of highly customized products
and quick responses to
customer demand without
associated higher costs, through
efficient and effective use of
flexible and programmable
machinery and reconfigurable
production facilities.

Traditional Practice

Current Practice

Std. dized or uniform

Products

Customized or
highly variable
products

Longer Market Life

Shorter Market Life

Produced to forecast

Produced to order

Traditional Practice

Current Practice

Low information
Content

High information
Content

Priced by
Manufacturing unit
Cost + margin

Priced by customer
perceived value

Traditional Practice

Current Practice

Specific market
Niche

Multiple market
Niche

Self Contained

open for
upgrades /
information /
Services

The core concepts of agility

Agile manufacturing is a
term applied to an
organization that has created
the processes, tools, and
training to enable it to respond
quickly to customer needs and
market changes while still
controlling costs and quality.

An enabling factor in becoming an

agile manufacturer has been the
development of manufacturing
support technology that allows the
marketers, the designers and the
production personnel to share a
common database of parts and
products, to share data on production
capacities and problems
particularly where small initial
problems may have larger
downstream effects.

It is a general proposition of
manufacturing that the cost of
correcting quality issues
increases as the problem
moves downstream, so that it
is cheaper to correct quality
problems at the earliest
possible point in the process.

Agile manufacturing is seen as the

next step after LEAN in the
evolution of production methodical.
The key difference between the two
is like between a thin and an
athletic person, agile being the
latter. One can be neither, one or
both. In manufacturing theory being
both is often referred to as leagile.

According to Martin Christopher,

when companies have to decide
what to be, they have to look at the
Customer Order Cycle (the time
the customers are willing to wait)
and the lead time for getting
supplies. If the supplier has a short
lead time, lean production is
possible. If the customer order
cycle is short, agile production is
beneficiary.

9-22

The order cycle is the total time

taken from customer initiation of the
order through receipt of the product
or service by the customer. Thus, if
a sales person obtain an order from
a customer & holds it for few days
before entering the order then that
those few days get added to the
order cycle time, even though those
days were invisible to the
distribution center.

9-23

Elements of the order

cycle include placing the
order, order entry (if
separate from placement),
order placing & picking
for shipment, transit time,
and the actual delivery
process.

9-24

Customers tend to be more

concerned with the consistency of
total lead times than with absolute
lead time. So it is important to
monitor actual performance in this
regard & take corrective action
whenever needed. However, with
the increased emphasis on time
based competition, reducing total
cycle time has received greater
attention.

Just In Time
Manufacturing

Just in time is a pull system

of production, so actual
orders provide a signal for
when a product should be
manufactured. Demand-pull
enables a firm to produce
only what is required, in the
correct quantity and at the
correct time.

This means that stock levels of

raw materials, components,
work in progress and finished
goods can be kept to a
minimum. This requires a
carefully planned scheduling
and flow of resources through
the production process.

Modern manufacturing firms use

sophisticated production
scheduling software to plan
production for each period of
time, which includes ordering the
correct stock. Information is
exchanged with suppliers and
customers through EDI
(Electronic Data Interchange) to
help ensure that every detail is
correct.

Supplies are delivered right to

the production line only when
they are needed. For example,
a car manufacturing plant might
receive exactly the right number
and type of tyres for one days
production, and the supplier
would be expected to deliver
them to the correct loading bay
on the production line within a
very narrow time slot.

 Advantages of JIT in Production

Lower stock holding means a reduction
in storage space which saves rent and
insurance costs
As stock is only obtained when it is
needed, less working capital is tied up in
stock
There is less likelihood of stock
perishing, becoming obsolete or out of
date

 Avoids the build-up of unsold finished

product that can occur with sudden
changes in demand
Less time is spent on checking and reworking the product of others as the
emphasis is on getting the work right
first time

 Disadvantages of JIT in Production

There is little room for mistakes as
minimal stock is kept for re-working
faulty product
Production is very reliant on suppliers
and if stock is not delivered on time,
the whole production schedule can be
delayed
There is no spare finished product
available to meet unexpected orders,
because all products are made to meet