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Is MRP killing your LEAN implementation?
One of the major frustrations in trying to implement Lean Manufacturing in a plant
where there are unavoidable multi-levels of Bills of Material is the demoralizing
regularity of shortages - at a components level, parts level and material level.
It's all well and good everyone buying-in to a "Pull" philosophy in these environments,
but the common reality is that long lead times mean that purchases are being made
and components being fabricated and assembled in a "push" manner … or else lead
times would be pushed much further out, and on-time delivery would make the promise
of Lean look like a joke.
Today, in most pull-based manufacturing implementations like Lean or Drum-Buffer-Rope
(DBR) materials are not well synchronized. Without this material synchronization,
companies moving to pull-based manufacturing systems risk introducing a huge conflict
within the company. What happens when a company is missing materials or components
for the schedule? Does is shut down the operation and wait for the component? In
most manufacturing operations this is unacceptable regardless of how Lean they are.
Shutting down production every time a component is missing would cripple the company's
overall manufacturing capacity.
Does it "adjust" the schedule and make something ahead of time? This is probably
more likely the case. This is a recipe for waste for two reasons. First, this can
consume other common components that may end up being tomorrow's shortages. This
begins the vicious cycle of materials related course corrections. Second, by getting
in the habit of making things ahead of time simply because it is what they have
materials for is NOT effectively operating to the principles of "Pull." In fact,
it often means that your company is really good at making the wrong things faster.
In fact, effective pull-based materials synchronization is a pre-requisite to enabling
manufacturing techniques like Lean and DBR to achieve their potential. Many times
companies that put in these systems do not and cannot effectively change their materials
planning system to fit them.
Actively Synchronized Replenishment eliminates the component, parts and material
shortage problems that create so much conflict between the "Pull" philosophy of
Lean manufacturing, and the "Push" necessity of coping with long lead times and
multi-level Bills of Material.
Download the whitepaper, Beyond MRP,
to learn more about Actively Synchronized Replenishment.
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CMG - Constraints Management Group - The Thoughtware People, Replenishment+ and
R+ are all registered trademarks of Constraints Management Group, LLC
DBR+ is a trademark of Constraints Management Group, LLC
Copyright © 2000-2008, Constraints Management Group, LLC.
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