Achieving LEAD TIME REDUCTION through...

Quick Response Manufacturing

The theater of competition for manufacturing firms today is speed - not only speed of delivery, but of concept, design and production.  New doors open for those who can get products to market before the competition, and success hinges on the ability to move quickly.  Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) strategies apply to management and staff in all functional areas of the organization, including finance, marketing, purchasing, design engineering and manufacturing.

What is Quick Response Manufacturing ?

Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) is a company wide strategy to cut lead times in all phases of a manufacturing enterprise.  It facilitates bringing products to market more quickly and secures business prospects by helping compete in a rapidly changing economic arena.  QRM will not only make a firm more attractive to potential customers, it will also increase profitability by reducing non-value added time, cutting inventory and increasing return on investment.

The QRM approach complements many other ideas, plans, tools and philosophies.  Many tools such as MRP / ERP can be effective in running a business.  JIT is a excellent plan for handling repetitive tasks.  The relationships of these tools to QRM strategies is discussed in Dr. Rajan Suri’s book “Quick Response Manufacturing: A Companywide Approach to Reducing Lead Times" (Productivity Press, 1998).

The major difference is that QRM focuses all efforts towards a single goal - lead time reduction. Achieving that goal requires that all aspects of the business are under control and working together. Thus to achieve QRM most companies will need to use and adopt other tools and ideas that make sense and work for them.

What can QRM do for my Company ?

Firms that have adopted the QRM strategy capture market share by filling customer orders faster than their competitors and by rapid development and introduction of new products. Successful implementation of QRM results in high quality and low cost products.  Firms using QRM strategies become more formidable competitors.

The focus on lead time forces a company to increase quality (thereby eliminating rework), reduce variability (reducing queueing times), set the right lot size, do setup reduction (not to reduce lead time directly - but to decrease lot sizes and then cut lead times) and look at cutting the time spent waiting for resources.  It does not focus on cutting process times per se (which often is less than 5% of the lead time), but rather does focus on the queuing time (often 95% or more of the lead time).  This is how companies can achieve reductions of 30-90%.

How can I make this happen ?

NDI's approach to QRM takes you through a simple and clear process so that you can understand how QRM will work for your company.  You can start this process by contacting NDI and reviewing the process we use to work with companies.

Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) is an expansion of time-based competition (TBC) strategies which use speed for a competitive advantage. Essentially, QRM stems from a single principle - reducing lead times. But here's the key difference that successfully sets QRM apart from other time-based programs: Quick Response Manufacturing is an approach for the entire organization - from the shop floor to the office, from recognizing production to new product introduction, from accounting to performance measures, from purchasing to sales. In order to truly succeed with speed-based competition, you must change the management mind-set and reduce lead times throughout the organization.

And for those of you who have invested in lean manufacturing programs, QRM does not require that you scrap these programs. Instead, Quick Response Manufacturing builds upon the ideas of kaizen, TQM, TPM, and others, making it an expansion of your company's quest for competitive strategies. So discover the power of speed. Quick Response Manufacturing is a powerful corporate strategy that holds tremendous benefits for your entire organization.
 

"Dr. Rajan Suri's concepts of Quick Response Manufacturing detailed in this new book present the reader with important and powerful strategies for making major enterprise wide improvements in manufacturing... I am convinced that it is the right approach for all companies that are manufacturing special machines and equipment in small lot sizes."