Achieving Excellence in Manufacturing – Concepts, Strategies and Designing Eco-friendly Manufacturing Practices

Abstract

An organization’s survival depends upon its ability to adapt to the changes in the business environment. The changes are often reflected in the new products and technologies launched and used by competitors, shift in consumer preferences, and changes in government policies. These factors often point to the need for a company to have excellence in manufacturing, whose concept and implementation started developing in seventies due to the increased global competition and rapid technological changes. New approaches like customer focus, total quality management, just-in-time production, continuous improvement, lean manufacturing, employee involvement, and other supporting processes were developed to achieve manufacturing excellence under the domain of world-class manufacturing practices. This paper discusses the underlying principles of world class manufacturing (WCM) model and concept that has seen the emergence of companies from Japan, Germany, and the U.S. and other countries across the world to dominate on the global scale with their high quality products that continue to satisfy customers in their respective product segments. Despite achieving excellence in manufacturing, coupled with economic growth they bring to their countries, and possibly end-users also, as reflected by the rise in per capita income and consumption levels in developed and emerging economies in recent decades, sustainability concerns in the last 10-15 years have brought in new thinking to implement environment management systems in manufacturers’ production systems and value chains. This may require companies to re-design their internal and external strategies and processes in a manner that our eco-system is not harmed. The focus of this paper is on sustainable manufacturing, handling ecological and social challenges, and pursuit of green strategies to design environment friendly products, technologies and production systems that will reduce environmental impacts.

Keywords: customer focus, just-in-time, logistics, quality control, total quality management