Critical Thinking
The global marketplace has witnessed increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as well as the service sector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). Due to the rapidly changing global marketplace, only those companies will be able to survive that will deliver products of good quality at a cheaper rate to achieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusing on cost-cutting, increasing productivity levels, and quality and guaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf, 1994).
Increased global competition leads the industry to increase efficiency by means of economies of scale and internal specialization so as to meet market conditions in terms of flexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995). The changes in the present competitive business environment are characterized by profound competition on the supply side and keen indecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. These changes have left their distinctive marks on the different aspect of the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With this increasingly global economy, cost-effective manufacturing has become a requirement to remain competitive.
To meet all the challenges organizations, try to introduce different manufacturing and supply techniques. Management of organizations devotes their efforts to reducing manufacturing costs and improving the quality of the product. To achieve this goal, different manufacturing and supply techniques have been employed. The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption of world-class, lean and integrated manufacturing strategies that have drastically changed the way manufacturing firms leads to improvement of manufacturing performance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).
Read textbook chapter 7 or secondary data on the internet and answer the following questions.
Question:
Differentiate between lean Thinking and the JIT model. Why have Manufacturing Companies adopted Lean Thinking and the JIT model? (3.5 Marks)
Briefly describe major types of Waste, out of all types of waste which one is the biggest waste companies must keep in mind during production. (3.5 Marks)
What are the benefits from Suppliers to end users for using lean thinking? Assess the reasons (suitable examples), (3.5 Marks)
The arrival of artificial intelligence. The agile supply chain is a perfect concept for future SCM? Give reasons with suitable examples