Manufacturing Systems: Foundations of World-Class Practice

Some 70 percent of U.S. manufacturing output currently faces direct foreign competition. While American firms understand the individual components of their manufacturing processes, they must begin to work with manufacturing systems to develop world-class capabilities.
This new book identifies principles--termed foundations--that have proved effective in improving manufacturing systems. Authored by an expert panel, including manufacturing executives, the book provides recommendations for manufacturers, leading to specific action in three areas:

• Management philosophy and practice.
  
• Methods used to measure and predict the performance of systems.
  
• Organizational learning and improving system performance through technology.
  

The volume includes in-depth studies of several key issues in manufacturing, including employee involvement and empowerment, using learning curves to improve quality, measuring performance against that of the competition, focusing on customer satisfaction, and factory modernization. It includes a unique paper on jazz music as a metaphor for participative manufacturing management.
Executives, managers, engineers, researchers, faculty, and students will find this book an essential tool for guiding this nation's businesses toward developing more competitive manufacturing systems.

• Front Matter
• Report of the Committee on Foundations of Manufacturing
• Executive Summary
• Introduction
• Overview
• Management Practice
• Measuring, Describing, and Predicting System Performance
• Organizational Learning and Improving System Performance
• Educational and Technological Challenges
• Globally Competitive Manufacturing Practices
• Involvement and Empowerment: The Modern Paradigm for Management Success
• Implementation Projects: Decisions and Expenditures
• Benchmarking
• Improving Quality Through the Concept of Learning Curves
• Organizing Manufacturing Enterprises for Customer Satisfaction
• Customer Satisfaction
• The Interface Between Manufacturing Executives and Wall Street Visitors--Why Security Analysts Ask Some of the Questions That They Do
• Taylorism and Professional Education
• The Integrated Enterprise
• Time as a Primary System Metric
• Communication Barriers to Effective Manufacturing
• Are There 'Laws' of Manufacturing?
• Taking Risks in Manufacturing
• Constant Change, Constant Challenge
• Manufacturing Capacity Management Through Modeling and Simulation
• The Power of Simple Models in Manufacturing
• Improving Manufacturing Competitiveness Through Strategic Analysis
• Going to the Gemba
• Jazz: A Metaphor for High-Performance Teams
• Consolidated Bibliography
• Committee Membership
• Biohgraphies of Contributing Authors
• Index