Friday, September 11, 2020

Quantum Theory of Production Resources and Waste

 11 September 2020


You cannot have zero waste of all production resources all the time. - Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.


Important production resources:  Production equipment, Material handling equipment, Tools, Inspection gauges, Jigs & Fixtures, Production operators, Jobs (orders to be executed), Materials (inventory).


To start with the theory is observable in practice. Even in the so called world class manufacturing, the Toyota Production Systems, there is lot of idleness of many production resources. The system was developed for high profit and efficiency based on the idea concept of zero inventory in the system based on synchronizing orders and production across the supply chain with zero inventory. 

So a rational optimization of profit is possible with the given resources (quantity) and their characteristics. The characteristics of resources keep changing (mostly in positive direction) and quantity also keeps changing. Hence repeated optimization exercise to design the engineering configuration and mathematical analysis to choose the best combination is possible and necessary.


Japanese production moved away from maximum machine utilization based on inventory accumulation to allowing machine idle time based on zero inventories.


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