The role of lean manufacturing principles and strategic alternatives in achieving business goals

Lean Manufacturing is widely accepted as a proven method to achieve operational excellence. Many manufacturers undertake lean manufacturing implementations as a strategy to improve competitiveness and realize business objectives. However, despite the wealth of literature on the success of lean manufacturing, it should not be viewed as a panacea for every business situation. A key challenge is to estimate the true benefits that a lean implementation is likely to provide, and compare them to the requirements of the business. This thesis provides a framework for such an analysis in the context of the Detroit Forge facility of American Axle & Manufacturing, Inc (AAM). AAM has been facing some significant challenges in the recent past, including skyrocketing steel prices, the prospect of declining sales and contractually fixed labour costs. AAM has launched a corporate wide lean manufacturing initiative to eliminate waste from its plants, and to make them more competitive. The actual improvement achievable at each plant will vary depending upon the current state of the plant, the nature of the operations and type of equipment used.

Department dc:contributor.department

Leaders for Manufacturing Program at MIT

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Ramaswamy, Dhananjay

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Stephen C. Graves and Daniel E. Whitney.

• Sloan School of Management.
• Mechanical 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/1721.1/37242

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/37242