Customers desire products and services that meet their individualized requirements and are available very quickly after ordering. More often than not, this means that an item is customized to meet their needs and is ordered in very limited quantities - often just one or two at a time. Initially this seems like the natural environment to employ Lean Manufacturing type techniques, where items are ideally produced in a lot size of one and they are manufactured in response to customer demand. However, Lean or JIT systems are designed to produce standardized products where manufacturing activities are repetitive, work instructions can be standardized, and scheduling can be managed through a pull system. When your product or service is produced as a Make-to-Order, Design-to-Order, or Engineer-to-Order then Lean may not provide the flexibility to produce or schedule these types of products quickly. Even with more standardized products, shortened product life cycles and the rate of change of technology may demand a manufacturing environment that can adapt quickly. Eventually, all companies will need to reduce their manufacturing and service lead times substantially from current levels.

A technique to do just this is known as Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) where the relentless pursuit of reducing product and service lead-times is the singular goal of the process. This methodology affects any function in the organization that impacts customer order fulfillment. As a result, in addition to the shop floor, front office functions that involve: order entry, application engineering, manufacturing engineering, new product introduction, etc. are included.

QRM is an out growth of the Time Based Competition (TBC) concepts that were being developed in the 1980's and it has matured to the point where it consists of key core principles that are logically derived along with a methodology for deployment, and a track record of successful case studies.

Key QRM Characteristics:

QRM builds and extends upon the techniques developed in numerous other process improvement methodologies that have come before it such as Total Quality Management, Lean Manufacturing, Re-engineering, Constraint Management, and Six Sigma. It will most likely be the foundation for the body of knowledge that will ultimately form the Agile or Flexible Manufacturing methodology.

System Dynamics:

The most significant development to come out of QRM is the use of applied statistics to gain an understanding of how particular characteristics such as process variability, arrival time variability, and queuing theory impact a given system or process. These characteristics are used by QRM to develop a concept called the "System Dynamics" to describe the underlying principles that govern how a particular system works. Particularly significant is that QRM uses this technique to understand how multiple factors interact like: the impact of Lot Sizes on Lead Time. Per the chart below, a reduction in setup times shifts the curve, reducing both the lot size and lead time requirements needed to produce products or services.

Organizations that would particularly benefit from the use of QRM techniques include:

 Companies that produce to Low Volume / High Mix requirements such as custom Engineer-to-Order, Design-to-Order, or possibly Make-to-Order.

 Companies that produce products with short life cycles including: computers, cell phones, etc.

 Companies that sell to markets where demand is unpredictable or rapidly changing such as emerging markets and technologically driven markets.

 Companies where a strategic marketplace advantage can be secured by being able to dramatically reduce lead times and cycle times.

Chet Kagel
HPK Group, LLC