Katherine Ann P.

Paleracio
Quality Parts Co.

1. Which of the changes being considered by the manager of Quality Parts Company are counter to the lean philosophy of the company? a. Look into high-rise shelving to store parts coming off machine 4 In exhibit 13.16, we could see that machine 4 is the bottleneck process. Setting up a high rise shelve will not solve the bottleneck. They will just spend for something that is no use for the company. This will be against to the lean warehousing. They will just invest in a non-value step in manufacturing their products. b. Setting up a network line to speed repairs although this will help to improve the quality of the products coming out of the factory, having an additional process for a network line for repairs will not improve the production of the company. Instead, they could implement a strict quality control from the beginning of the process until the final step to ensure the quality of the products being produced by the company. Money and time that will be spend for this process can be spent to a more important machineries needed by the company. c. The other decisions of the manager for me which are having automated ordering system and adding three inspectors to clean up quality problems will be needed by the company to increase production and gain customers trust through quality products.

2. Make recommendations for the lean improvements in such areas as scheduling, layout, kanban, task groupings, and inventory. Use quantitive data as much as possible: state necessary assumptions. a. The bottleneck is in process 4, which includes 3 steps in assembling the products. With this, products coming from machining dept. are piled up when it reaches the assembly bench. Therefore, adding additional assembly bench or getting a new machine that will give better or same input compare to current assembly bench that is much less time consuming will be a big help for the company. b. Process 6 or painting could be done on the last step, before process 7oven and process 8 packing. Painting in assembly dept. can be eliminated as this could be done in finishing dept. c. Process 1 is one of the processes that has the highest operation time and 2nd to the highest when it comes to set up time. Therefore, adding a machine in lathe will help improve the production of the company.

d. Machine dept. and assembly dept. can be integrated to one process. They should have a one continuous process and should not be separated as two departments. 3. What are the best practices of the company? a. The company has a clear current process in manufacturing their products. The production process and set up time for each machine is clear to them. b. The manager is aware of these processes and she is willing to improve the current operations of the company. 4. How can you apply these best practices to your own company? a. Having a clear process in producing the product is important for every company. In our company which is a consulting firm, having a business process in getting a client, implementing the project and maintaining our credibility to our customers is important. With this, when you have the clear process of the current system, improving it will be easy especially in pinpointing where the problems will exist or is already existing. b. If you have the process I stated above, awareness of employees in each process will increase and therefore, improving these process will be much easier.