ANALYZING MANUFACTURING PROCESS INFORMATION

This paper provides a systems engineering (SE) approach with which to process manufacturing information through analysis of relationships by evaluating what is important and where to focus resources. It is evid ent that an engineer's view of achieving accuracy in the information, integrity of data, and analysis of the results are highly critical in today's manufacturing environments. Modern flexible, just-in-time, and total-quality manufacturing systems (MS) demand design and developmen t (D and D) of products and services that satisfy customers requiremen ts, are timely, and are competitively priced. Traditionally. informati on processing in manufacturing environments has relied on instinct, in tuition, and anecdote to evaluate and improve. As global competition i ncreases systems engineering departments (SED), now, must review their work and ask objectively 'How are we doing?' and 'How can we do bette r?' Thereby, instincts, intuition, and anecdotes in most cases serve m ore as obstacles than as aids to understanding and improving the proce ss. This paper addresses critical issues in analysis of manufacturing process information by answering; 'Why measure the information process ?', 'Why does information process analysis work?', 'How can SED analyz e manufacturing processes?', and 'How can information analysis enhance productivity, efficiency, effectiveness and profits?'. (C) 1998 Elsev ier Science S.A. All rights reserved.