THE BUILDING-BLOCKS OF MANUFACTURING EXCELLENCE

The changing pressures on manufacturing businesses over the last thirt y years have brought about a significant shift in emphasis away from a n internal focus on plant efficiency and asset utilization rewards cre ating flexible, responsive manufacturing plants that can cope with an ever more demanding marketplace. This development is charted and trans lated into the characteristics needed in order to compete in the globa l markets of the twenty-first century. A model of manufacturing excell ence is built and described in terms of the interdependence between th e key factors that can create competitive advantage from manufacturing systems: process repeatability ream capability, design for manufactur e, and volume and mb flexibility. These factors build capabilities in terms of quality consistency and throughput efficiency and also throug h the delicate balance now required between complexity and flexibility . The traditional measures of perfomance, such as utilization and retu rn on sales, are presented as being relevant only as consequences rath er than as drivers for plant performance.