Study Guide

Learning objectives

The goal of this course is to provide the students the competences of plant managers and tools to implement the agile paradigms from mass customizing unique products for individual customers or niche markets to manufacturing products to-order quickly and cost effectively in flexible environment.

The students learn how to manage variety, customize products quickly and easily, and how to develop production systems to JIT, TOC, LEAN and agile manufacturing according to production strategy.

In order to develop production systems in practice one needs to have competence to analyze, evaluate, design and implement systems for production in factories and service industries.

One also needs to understand the need for strategic fit and improvement in different situations.

Content

Production and manufacturing philosophies
Just In Time
Theory of Constraints
LEAN Production and Management, Kaizen and 5S
Mass Customization, Modular and Agile Product
Manufacturing System Design and Decomposition (MSDD)
LAYOUT specialties for different manufacturing systems
Performance Measuring and Analyzing Tools
Simulations and work improvement methods

Materials

Materials in Moodle
Krajewski & Ritzman: Operations Management - Strategy and Analysis.
Anderson: Agile Product Development for Mass Customization.
Slack , Chambers & Johnston: Operations management.
Womack, Jones & Roos, D: The Machine that Changed The World.
Liker: The Toyota Way.
Rother: Toyota Kata.

Qualifications

Basic knowledge of business economics, procurement management, operations management and materials management.