In recent years American manufacturers have faced increasing competition from abroad. In addition to having low prices, being competitive now requires outstanding quality, short lead times, and increased responsiveness to customer's changing demands. Companies that have successfully responded to this changing environment have done so by decreasing work in process (WIP) and finished goods inventory levels thereby allowing early detection of quality problems, shorter lead times, and less vulnerability to changing demands. A major cause of high WIP levels and long lead times is the lack of synchronization between fabrication and assembly. Where they are applicable, Kanban and other such pull systems achieve a high degree of synchronization. Unfortunately, Kanban is suitable only for repetitive manufacturing environments. Thus, less effective but more applicable systems such as Materials Requirements Planning continue to find application. This project will develop a production control strategy, called Synchronized Production, that offers the increased performance of Kanban in a much wider variety of manufacturing environments. IBM Corporation is funding certain portions of the research that pertain directly to a circuit board plant. The result of the joint NSF and IBM funding will be the basic theory behind the new control strategy as well as experience with portions of its implementation. By combining industry and government support, this project will develop both the theoretical and applied results needed to enable Synchronized Production to play a role in restoring the competitiveness of American manufacturing.
