Different manufacturing processes have different strengths and weaknesses as some are best suited to making small numbers of customized products, while others excel at producing large volumes of standard item. Companies must therefore carefully consider the strengths and weaknesses of different processes and make appropriate decisions as part of their overall business strategy not just in relation to the right equipment but also to include people, facilities and physical layouts as well as information systems (Bozarth and Handfield, p. 55). Consequently, an ideal manufacturing system must be flexible and yet efficient, with low unit production costs.
Based on the above, you are asked to take as an example a product or a service from an industry that you are familiar with (e.g., food, technology, healthcare, retail, services, automotive), and critically:
i. Examine the current process design of that product or service in alliance with the 4 Vs model and illustrate the operational process by using either a Flow Chart or Value Stream Map technique.
ii. Discuss how implementation of Lean Principles and Just -in- Time (JIT) manufacturing may assist in achieving a more flexible and yet efficient process design. Justify your answer by referring to the 5 Performances model.
Follow a report format. Therefore, you should have a title page, contents page, sections and sub sections, page numbers, appendix section etc. Please use diagrams, illustrations, tables, graphics etc. wherever these are helpful, and remember that these do not count towards your word limit.
Try to use theory explicitly at all stages, but do not spend too much time describing a theory. While you must be explicit about the theories, models, techniques etc. that you use, you can assume that the reader is familiar with them. What the reader requires is evidence of your ability to understand and apply the theory and learn from in order to support the development of your findings and/or ideas.
You must cite all sources on which you have relied, for example textbooks, journal articles, web pages etc. using the Harvard Bibliographic referencing system
You will also need to take the following into account when completing your assignment:
• Quality of executive summary (does it give a brief complete summary of your paper for an executive to read?)
• Establishment of relevant theory
• Allocation of credit and sources used (have I included references and citations to the material I have used?)
• Clarity of argument
• Overall report presentation including spelling and grammar
• Adherence to nominated word limit (+/- 10%)
• Word processed (letter size 12, times new roman, 1.5 space), fully referenced (Harvard Referencing System)
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