Describe lean, discrete, and process manufacturing
As the world continues to shift to a technology-based society, the manufacturing industry is using a mixture of artificial intelligence machine learning and big data to become more connected. By taking advantage of the latest technology available, manufacturers can create smarter processes and operations, such as Internet of things (IoT) and mixed reality, to optimize people, processes, and equipment.
The functionality in Supply Chain Management helps you to realize the new efficiencies, innovations, and growth from digital transformation. You can create best-fitting manufacturing processes to address your production requirements with a single solution.
With Supply Chain Management, you can use:
Discrete manufacturing
Lean manufacturing
Process manufacturing
Unified (mixed-mode) manufacturing
Let us briefly define the various kinds of manufacturing.
Discrete manufacturing
Discrete manufacturing is the production of distinct items. Automobiles, furniture, toys, smartphones, and airplanes are examples of discrete manufacturing products. Discrete manufacturers use a bill of materials (BOM) and production follows a route, such as an assembly line.
Discrete manufacturing includes the following characteristics:
Order-based production or production in individual production orders
Varying sequence of work centers and complex routings
Semi-finished products that are often put into interim storage
Components that are released based on the scheduling of the production order
Completion confirmation, or backflush, for individual operations or orders
Raw materials measured in pieces
A single finished good as output
Waste accounted for on raw material lines only
In discrete manufacturing, the production of items follows a sequential production lifecycle. The lifecycle reflects the steps that are required to manufacture an item. You first create the production order and end it with a finished, manufactured item that is ready for the customer. Each step in the lifecycle requires different kinds of information. At each step, the status of the production order changes.
The Production control module is linked to these other modules in Supply Chain Management and Dynamics 365 Finance:
Inventory management
Warehouse management
General ledger
Master planning
Organization administration
Process manufacturing
Process manufacturing is common in the food, beverage, chemical, pharmaceutical, consumer packaged goods, and biotechnology industries. In process manufacturing, the relevant factors are ingredients, formulas, and bulk materials rather than parts, bills of materials, and individual units.
Organizations that want to automate their production processes for products manufactured in a batch, semi-continuous, or continuous processing environment can use process manufacturing.
Characteristics of process manufacturing include:
Uses a formula or recipe.
Blends products together in a batch.
Builds or produces a product that can't be taken apart or be reversed.
Involves variable ingredients.
Generates product outputs such as coproducts and by-products.
Makes products in bulk quantities, such as paints, pharmaceuticals, beverages, and food products.
Measures raw material ingredients in formulas by weight or volume instead of pieces.
Contains minimal interruptions.
Has one or more standard sizes (batch sizes) that are scaled for a quantity greater than one.
Manages short and long shelf life and stringent quality standards.
Has potentially one or more product outputs.
Accounts for waste/loss as yield, which is the ratio between output and input.
Requires containerized packaging.
Provides full or partial visibility of catch weight functionality.
Manages inventory batch.
Lean manufacturing
Lean manufacturing is a method that focuses on minimizing waste within manufacturing systems while simultaneously maximizing productivity. Discrete manufacturing is often associated with lean manufacturing.
Characteristics of lean manufacturing include:
Minimizes waste without sacrificing productivity.
Takes into consideration waste created through overburdening and waste created through unevenness in workloads.
Emphasizes what adds value and reduces everything that doesn't add value.
Derived from the Toyota Production System.
Known for its focus on the original Toyota seven wastes.
Lean manufacturing has five primary principles.
Identifying value: When identifying the value of product, you specify what creates value from the customer's perspective.
Understanding the value stream: The value stream is the sequence of processes from raw material to final customer handoff that creates value, or from product concept to market launch. The value stream can include the complete supply chain. Value stream mapping is an important tool to help model the lean transformation.
Creating flow: Create the value process flow wherever possible in the process. You can use one-piece flow by linking all the activities and processes into the most efficient combinations to maximize value-added content while minimizing waste. The waiting time of work in progress between processes is eliminated; hence, adding value more quickly.
Pull: Pull is the response to the customers’ rate of demand that drives the supply chain. In other words, make only what the customer needs. With a pull concept, based on a supply chain view from downstream to upstream activities, nothing is produced by the upstream supplier until the downstream customer signals a need.
Striving for perfection: The last lean principle is to strive for perfection. Lean is a journey of continuous improvement. The goal is to produce exactly what the customer wants in the most economical manner. Perfection is an aspiration, and anything and everything can be improved.
Unified (mixed-mode) manufacturing
Distinct types of products require different manufacturing processes. Therefore, various products and production topologies require the application of different order types.
Supply Chain Management provides an end-to-end process of producing one finished product, whatever the manufacturing process type.
The production of products, a process that is also known as the production lifecycle, follows specific steps to complete the manufacture of an item. The lifecycle begins with creating the production order in a discrete process, batch order in a process, or Kanban in a lean manufacturing environment.
Whether you use a discrete, lean, process, or unified manufacturing model for production, Supply Chain Management gives you the power to create and maintain a best-fit manufacturing process.