Regardless of the strategies chosen, it is critical to select a production plan that can be executed by the entire organization, from the shop floor.

Manufacturers face the daunting challenge of producing high-quality products at a significantly reduced cost. This has prompted many to expand operations into foreign markets in an effort to decrease production and labor costs. This shift has saved companies millions of dollars, but as the recent product recalls show, there is also an inherent loss of control unless companies plan for and implement steps to mitigate quality issues.

Today’s manufacturers are taking a closer look at their sourcing and manufacturing strategies. This hard, internal review has led many organizations to adopt a lean philosophy to quality management of their operations.

Often, business processes are examined in terms of cost without considering the cost of lost opportunity. Expanding competitive pressures for a company result in customers being more likely to look for alternative suppliers, causing manufacturers to determine ways to improve quality throughout their entire supply chains.    

Creating a key challenge for most companies is their reliance on quality assurance systems in a non-integrated environment, which leads to disparate islands of information. When quality is not managed at a corporate level, and instead is siloed throughout the company, costs escalate.    

Without common processes or standard methodologies to manage corrective action responses, manufacturers have difficulty collaborating with suppliers to improve performance. This is only part of the problem since without a holistic approach to quality, manufacturers cannot fully utilize supplier quality information for renegotiating future contracts, or properly collaborate with partners, suppliers and customers.    

The global economy demands companies focus on increasing their revenue by reducing the cost of goods sold. By automating internal and external quality processes, manufacturers can ensure regulatory compliance, reduce overall costs and defect rates, and promote company-wide business improvements. A push toward lean quality management within an organization reduces non-value activities associated with scrap, wait-time, burden and labor, and increases first-time quality.

A Three-Layer Approach
Adopting individual elements of lean will produce isolated improvements rather than long-term results. Lean is a philosophy that encompasses people and processes, and it is their synchronized relationship that makes lean practices most effective.

As manufacturers deploy enterprise-wide lean initiatives, they must consider three essential layers: the business value stream layer, the business improvement layer, and the business strategies and tools layer. None of these facets of the operation can be overlooked.

The business value stream layer – aligned with James Womack and Daniel Jones’ 1996 definitions of the five main steps to achieving lean transition for enterprises – is based on the processes that meet customer needs and expectations. Critical to this initial layer is to define and optimize the way a company responds to customer demand, and how the response adds value to customer satisfaction through a cycle that includes:

• Defining value based on the customer’s viewpoint
• Mapping the value streams for all processes affecting internal and external customers
• Making all work activities flow with efficiency
• Continuous improvement based on customer feedback

Once the value streams for each department are defined, continuous improvement is vital to ensure procedures are enhanced based on any new-found customer, supplier or inter-departmental issues. The purpose is to conduct a formal review of the process, solicit feedback from the group, gain buy-in from team members, and ultimately work toward improvements that achieve better results through enhancements to existing processes.    

The business improvement layer includes elements that seek to uncover areas of improvement and enhancement, and support business excellence daily throughout the company.

When looking on the supply side, companies can utilize lean initiatives to minimize the procurement of material, reduce time and costs, and decrease returns and quality issues. On the demand side, businesses have the ability to more quickly deliver higher-quality products at lower costs – when and where customers want them.

For example, many enterprising manufacturers are applying a lean philosophy
to replenishment, collaborating more closely with suppliers to improve quality, fulfillment and customer satisfaction. This approach provides comprehensive visibility of the supply chain, and the real-time exchange of information reduces errors and regulatory non-compliance through proactive exception management.

The business strategy layer is used to manage and monitor business transactions such as order placement, production and fulfillment, customer service tracking, and material receipt and inspection.

There are a number of strategies and tools that can be applied, some dependent upon the defined production methodology and flow, which can be based on a model of engineer-to-order, make-to-order and repetitive manufacturing, or a combination thereof. Strategies selected also depend on management’s philosophy and willingness to fully embrace specific business practice strategies and tools.

In addition, each strategy involves different levels of detail for reporting and tracking. Options include:

• Theory of constraints
• Drum buffer rope
• Flow manufacturing
• Just-in-time
• Simplified market pull
• Lean accounting

Regardless of the strategies chosen, it is critical for manufacturers to select a production plan that can be executed by the entire organization from the shop floor to the top floor. Each functional area can start by developing a value stream map of the typical business process flow to identify areas of improvement. This should ideally begin by gathering feedback from internal and external customers, which can be accomplished through interviews and surveys.

Quality Outside the Four Walls
Supplier relationship management is important in all areas of a manufacturer’s business, but none is as critical or as potentially costly as quality management. Companies should look for a means of identifying under-performing suppliers and develop a process for collaborating with them on corrective action responses for defective material or shipments.

By having this real-time participation in quality processes with suppliers, manufacturers can reduce defects, non-conformances, supplier response time and the cost of quality.

It is crucial that manufacturers manage their engineering product and process lifecycles, and leverage the supply chain to attain excellence in quality throughout their operations and supplier community.

Equally as important, the ability to share data across the enterprise allows companies to eliminate redundant data entry and view real-time, accurate engineering and product information needed to make cost-effective decisions and manage communications with their customers and suppliers.

Business-Specific Solutions
For order-driven manufacturers to balance productivity, quality assurance, customer satisfaction and profitability, they are required to have a fully integrated, scalable and automated quality management solution designed to fit their specific industry requirements. Software exists today that addresses the quality issues manufacturers face and provides greater visibility into quality procedures throughout the value chain.

There are a number of factors to consider when a company is evaluating which technology solution best suits their needs. The operation’s solution should be built to address the mission-critical areas of their business and cover all aspects of quality management, including a consistent, cohesive system of controls, procedures and measures, certification, financial analysis, auditing and advanced reporting capabilities.

Each of these areas should be able to handle multiple factors, which will allow them to effectively manage quality throughout the enterprise.

In addition, a comprehensive solution will enable collaboration. This will allow a company to synchronize quality measures with data sharing, standardize preventive and corrective action request (CAR) processes, implement early warning programs for defective material, create real-time “To-Do Lists” for each user, and automate scheduling and event management.

Businesses can leverage technology to increase productivity while improving quality by establishing and managing quality systems criteria that fully support their business- and industry-specific requirements.

Manufacturing companies should look for a solution that will help them automate associated concept, design, pre-production, production and post-production activities, and easily collect, analyze and control key data. This will provide companies with greater visibility across their organization for cost-effective decision-making, allowing them to improve response time, increase customer satisfaction by maintaining accessible and detailed customer histories, as well as monitor and manage communications with customers and suppliers to improve all supply chain relationships.

Driving Lean Excellence
In today’s global market, manufacturers face increased competition for each customer. The pressure to reduce time and errors requires companies to establish and maintain quality assurance programs that fully support industry standards and regulations. To remain competitive, manufacturers need to optimize their engineering processes and product lifecycles, and leverage supply chains to bring superior products to market on time and on budget.

By adopting an integrated quality program that includes suppliers, technology can help manufacturers better manage quality issues throughout their extended supply chains. This enhanced visibility allows manufacturers to reduce supplier CAR cycle times, recognize under-performing suppliers, prevent receipt of defective lots, and avoid missed schedules and late deliveries.

Strategy-Driven Processes
A simple shift in quality management can move a manufacturing organization from standards-driven to strategy-driven business processes, which also will enable improvement through the ideas and concepts currently embodied in the company’s policies. In utilizing innovative strategies, manufacturers can increase their production capabilities and improve customer relationships, productivity and quality while minimizing costs.

Kevin Piotrowski is director of industry and product marketing for Infor, a global provider of enterprise software. With more than 23 years’ experience in developing and marketing innovative business solutions, Piotrowski leads the global marketing initiatives for Infor's industry-specific automotive and discrete manufacturing verticals. For more information, please contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .