Enabling waste elimination, learning, and continuous improvement through standardization

Many manufacturing companies have developed their own operating system, usually based upon the Toyota Production System, in an effort to improve productivity, quality, and profitability. Continuous improvement is a central theme to most operating systems. Typically large continuous improvement projects or kaizen bursts are used to improve processes. However, these often lead to variable and unsustainable results. A hypothesis is that a detailed standardization of processes will enable opportunities to be quickly revealed. Then a focus on incremental improvement through experimentation can lead to dramatic sustainable results. This thesis is based upon my experience at Mighty Motors in an attempt to gain a deeper understanding about standardization and continuous improvement. I obtained this understanding through direct observation by working with operators on the assembly line to standardize the process and make improvements. I developed the following conclusions: Focus on standardization to achieve sustainable continuous improvement. Without standardization, randomness and variability will hide the wastes and improvements will deteriorate.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Stover, Mark E. (Mark Eugene)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Roy E. Welsch and David Simchi-Levi.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Civil and Environmental Engineering.
• Leaders for Manufacturing Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34867

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34867