In our consultancy practice we find that large numbers of manufacturing companies are struggling with the decision whether to use a Cyclic or Non-Cyclic production system. Cyclic production is often regarded as an inflexible way of production; a pre-defined cycle reduces degrees of freedom in the production schedule. However, cyclic production...
Recently I was invited by a production company in the south of The Netherlands. The reason was chronic lack of grip on the production process. This was far from a new problem. However, increasing pressure on cost and reliability, forced the plant manager to take action soon. All efforts to date, including attempts to introduce Lean and Six...
It’s two minutes to twelve, and we continue navel gazing!” said one of the participants during the S&OP mini-seminar recently held at ArlaFoods in Nijkerk. Just before Lourens Schouwink, CFO Samsung Benelux, had talked about their ambitions and approach. Leaving part of his audience behind in wonder and despair. Samsung continues on the...
At the time Mr Taiichi Ohno, architect of the Toyota Production System, stated we should no longer make large amounts of stock and then try to sell it (push), but need to be aware of the market (pull), this meant a turnaround in our thinking. Nowadays, “push” and “pull” are two of the most used terms in SCM. So far, so good. Nevertheless, what...
Lean is still misunderstood by many. While large groups use Lean largely as a toolbox, others will consider it as a change philosophy. Both views unfortunately do not do justice to the Lean concept. The group that supports Lean as a change philosophy justly refers to the unexpected forces that it can release on the shop floor. Now I will be the...
‘Logistics is logical thinking’ is a statement that I often hear. Tempted to agree, I start to wonder that if this is true, how can it be that I am so often confronted with very different solutions to very similar problems. Could it be that logistics is not as logical as we often seem to think? In case of increasing lead times, one logistics...
Since the eighties we know that customer orders penetrate our company until the Customer Order Decoupling Point (CODP). For the fist time, Hoekstra and Romme made the explicit distinction between production to order and production to stock. With hindsight it seems hard to believe that this was such a big discovery. How difficult can it be? You...