Stops and starts in commission production, supply, or any production endeavor is more expensive or eventually will become more expensive than a deliberate continuous flow of processes.
Supply flows should not be viewed from the angle of process flow or rudimentary movement of goods, but should include entire frameworks for production, team or departmental communication, graduated blocks of gainful research, process redesign and improvements, that will be useful when applied to varied organizations, regardless of its base production or services offering.
Historically, supply process methods were used for or by manufacturing organizations because working with lean specifications to allocate just enough funds for production on a just in time (JIT) basis. But like a cold damper on research, or process improvements, disasters that can be foreseen and forecasted with modern communication methods and advances technology and speed of transmigration became something to view from an entirely different angle.
So instead of planning to care for scarcity of goods and materials after an unforeseen disaster would you not rather think of secondary and other auxiliary alternatives as has been done in aviation engineering and marine engineering for decades? This simply means – that a lean approach to processes is not always the cheapest neither is it always the most cost effective, for working teams.
For a large operations group, whether is in a manufacturing setting, or an administrative or management setting more than one trained groups or teams cross trained professionals who are ready to resume each other’s responsibilities at a moment’s notice, may just be what production teams need as a viable alternative to lean management, to prevent friction in the production momentum.
While this concept is different from the cross training in a departmental unit it has similarities. While standard cross training requires one original, and an exact duplication of procedures, scheduled execution methods, actual performance and operations, can suffice to fill in temporary instances, like planned vacation, emergencies, family leave of absence, a deliberate and complete mastery of not just one facet of a position but a complete mastery of not one facet of a position but the entire position function is required in the robust management concept.
While lean operation is desirable for many reasons like cost effectiveness, asset turnover, capital turnover, sustainability, reduced duplication, reduced material waste and adequate utilization of skills and equipment amongst many others.
The same reasons lean management styles relies are desirable makes it a candidate for scrutiny and observation with a view to on tested principles like just in time (JIT) delivery systems, and inventory controls, single source supplies, global outsourcing, shared services, and single non-duplicated sources of supply.
In a world continuously seeking to improve pace, design, efficiency at optimal cost, the wheels of supply and production begins to thin with every additional load and distress placed upon it, by the same “improved” sharpened and refreshingly flawless system.
And in situations where both acts of “God” and “Man’s recklessness or errors” and premeditated evil has brought productivity to a freeze, requires not just a cursory concern but a deliberate scientific approach towards both a contingency plan and a methodical, researched, multileveled action plan.
If a reliable supplier is at optimal performance, consistent, safe, and of adequate quality not simply in delivery time, what option does a manufacturer manager have when for example, an unplanned disruption occurs to the supplier who is unable to fulfill his supply obligation, because his dedicated line of service providers had a glitch in their operations?
In such instance it is evident that JIT will be inadequate, not just for the mom-and-pop small tool shops or small businesses with limited resources, but medium and large organizations. Hence overcoming unpleasant surprises requires secondary and auxiliary teams, technical and managerial.
