Customer service productivity
Technological advancement is one of the approaches that can help in revamping the customer expectations, especially on the companies’ productivity process. The production control of the manufacturing process can release orders to the production store in order of how they are received; the orders are batched and configured on the shop store to reduce the level of time-consuming changeovers (Kim, 2014). Asper the first simulation it’s noted there is no enough totes, causes delays, material cannot be handled correctly while on the second simulation there are enough totes, but cycling totes is still wasteful. Nevertheless, this processes creates the urge for the reduction of production lead time and also on the other side, increase the value of added time in the first simulation. In this manufacturing system, it is seen that the production only starts when there are customer demands and orders; hence the wastes like overproduction and excess inventory is prevented. However, the company is expected to implement a pull system to be capable of fulfilling the customer’s demands within a given time frame on simulation 2. Having identified that a future change might involve making the relationship between customer ordering and manufacturing more streamlined then both the two simulation can depict a greater change in future. The company needs to collaborate with brand owners to create a mutual relationship with the customer’s service representatives. The productivity of the service to customers will give a wide range of valuable assistance for troubleshooting and technical support. Work ethic must be ensured through working together all the time since it provides a small margin of errors, and other issues can be prevented from occurrence. Nevertheless, having an excellent customer service production team that understands the entire manufacturing process will help in identifying problems and recommending the bests solutions towards the issues.
Work in Progress
As from the two simulations it’s worth noting that the Raw Materials process now become fully automated, with even faster Cycle Time, and better utilization meaning that the WIP is properly controlled. The manufacturing process of this company is aimed at creating more value for the customers using the few resources available so as to improve on the administrative bottlenecks identified in simulation one and two. This company must understand that the customers’ needs and focus since they are key agendas towards a continuous increase in value. In the context of manufacturing the WIP, inventory is classified as a form of waste; nonetheless, it cannot be avoided in the field of production. The implementation of several production strategies is involved to ensure that there is progress in work ethic and customer satisfaction. The introduction of withdraw by sequence process has transformed on what is needed, how many are required between downstream and upstream operations, and when it is needed. Nevertheless, the implementation of the supermarket concept will be of help to achieve many processes that are required and also it establishes the ordering of products outside the assembly line. In addition, the interface with the company’s software will help to delegate workflow based on customer orders. To continuously reduce the line WIP as per the work ethic, the production and use of a Kanban card call in the approach must be applied (Rahani, & Al-Ashraf, 2012). Considering that it is difficult to determine the exact time of completion for a certain commodity and to meet the required downstream process, it might result to problem of not be able to ascertain the WIP status particularly when on multiple production lines for diverse products. Moreover, the researchers and manufacturing practitioners are designing a robust and optimum approach for safe monitoring of WIP levels and also servicing the required processes. It is challenging to depend on an extremely robust and optimum control policy in conditions of changing degrees of instability which in turn can result in break-down times, set up times, and processing time. Hence, on different circumstances, the constant application WIP can be used to help in obtaining a minimum WIP level.
References
Kim, T., Kim, M. C., Moon, G., & Chang, K. (2014). Technology-based self-service and its impact on customer productivity. Services Marketing Quarterly, 35(3), 255-269.
Rahani, A. R., & Al-Ashraf, M. (2012). Production flow analysis through value stream mapping: a lean manufacturing process case study. Procedia Engineering, 41, 1727-1734.