Fast Cycle Production

This article discusses the dynamics of management in a facility using Fast Cycle Production as a management philosophy of choice. The elements of this Values Based Management Philosophy are as follows:

1. TAKT Management - How to use TAKT and its power to establish and maintain a continuous improvement environment and mentality

2. WIP management - How to control WIP levels and keep them under control

3. Resource management - Establishing and maintaining a consistent, fair and predictable management style in a Fast Cycle Production environment.

As one who first started using simulation modeling in the early 90’s, it has been both exciting and educational to see how simulation modeling has evolved, especially within my own company. In those early days, simulation modeling was primarily used by "engineering types" for engineering purposes, such as determining the requirements capabilities of certain machines under various conditions.
 
As far as I know, I was one of the first to take simulation modeling out of the engineering department and put it into the hands of production people. I combined this "tool” with some production values that I subscribe to and used simulation to determine how a manufacturing plant or even a single department could improve their process productivity by analyzing potential changes to a process before they were implemented – and proving it!

In those days, simulation wasn’t trusted because there was a verification issue with simulation. Verification was described simply by saying, “To what degree can we be certain that the model is telling us the truth?”  The old saying, “garbage in, garbage out” was a very real problem when it came to credibility. The problem with verification in those days was pretty much a function of whether the simulator, rather than the simulation, was credible and could be trusted. The thought of making a very expensive change to a layout, or the purchase of expensive machines based on the output of a simulation was scary to many managers, and was a hard obstacle to deal with.