Managing Compet
Managing Competitiveness using Production Volumes - Product Variety Model for Automobile Industry
Mirza Jahanzaib, Syed Athar Masood, Khalid Akhtar, Khurram Ali
Industrial Engineering Department, University of Engineering & Technology, Taxila, Pakistan
ABSTRACT: The manufacturing industries can be classified into process industry (PI) and discrete parts manufacturing industry (DPMI). Process industries have dedicated product line with fixed processes, routings and planning, whereas while discrete parts manufacturing industries are more flexible in terms of production volumes and varieties. For economic manufacturing, the optimum combination of Volume – Variety exists i.e. job shop, batch production system or mass production. In this paper, we have looked at the typical production volumes and varieties and have argued that there exist very low variety and low to medium production volumes for this particular sector. This calls for investigating ways and strategies to effectively cope with this situation. By taking a case of automobile part vendors triple strategy approach is adopted. Three strategies are not mutually exclusive – a subsequent strategy assumes that the previous strategy has been executed earlier and its benefits/ results still exist when the subsequent strategy is implemented. Strategies are, Good Governance Strategy (GGS), an Automation Strategy (AS) and an Export Strategy (ES). Using real life data from automobile part manufacturers; attempt is also made to test adopted strategies. The results indicate that a major scope for using techniques likes line balancing, activity based costing and value enhancement, exists. The extent of improvement has been shown by case studies of alternative production lines i.e. comparison of a traditional production line having large number of machines with that of a flexible line involving a much smaller number but versatile machines. Using value analysis in Export Strategy has helped in identifying less rewarding operations/ processes and thus competitiveness is obtained using the proposed model.
[Mirza Jahanzaib, Syed Athar Masood, Khalid Akhtar, Khurram Ali. Managing Competitiveness using Production Volumes - Product Variety Model for Automobile Industry. Life Sci J 2013;10(4s):202-208] (ISSN:1097-8135).http://www.lifesciencesite.com. 30
lKey Words: Manufacturing Strategies, Production Volume, Product Variety, Manufacturing Flexibility.
