The goal is to reduce manufacturing costs by achieving at least some economies of scale. They emphasize smoothing the work flow, specializing the work force, and minimizing the average unit cost of setups. Job shops typically respond to the limited and uneven demand for their products by batching together many months’ requirements of each. What’s required are radical changes in management philosophy-changes that conflict violently with the prevailing wisdom about job shop efficiency and how to use workers most productively. Dramatic improvements in job shop performance are possible. From here on out we’ll just have to assume that our operations people are doing the best job possible.” As one frustrated CEO recently told us, “We’ve done everything now. The imposing and conflicting demands under which job shops operate convince most managers to live with performance problems they would not tolerate in high-volume assembly. Machines must be reconfigured, people must learn and relearn specialized assembly procedures, and work orders must be rescheduled to meet customer timetables and specifications. Product mix in the factory can vary from week to week, even day to day, and volumes fluctuate widely. Job shops build customized or modified standard products in low volumes such as aircraft, machine tools, and construction equipment in complex make-buy-assemble operations. Uncertainty and uniqueness define the job shop. Machines and people perform largely routinized tasks on a limited variety of products. Without an urgent competitive threat, job shop managers have been slow to overhaul their manufacturing operations-despite problems of mediocre quality, excessive lead times, unreliable delivery, and high costs.Ĭontinuity and repetition are the essence of high-volume assembly. Many of these companies have been sheltered from foreign competition by their products’ custom nature and lack of mass market potential. industry-job shop manufacturers-continues to postpone needed reforms. Companies building high-volume standardized products like copiers, appliances, and automobiles are learning from their foreign rivals and emulating their commitment to ongoing product and process innovation. American industry is beginning to put its manufacturing house in order.
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