Quick response manufacturing

Competition (TBC), Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and many more. These ideas are not replaced or superseded by SCM. Rather, SCM incorporates all of these ideas to improve and manage the entire supply chain instead of just one firm in the supply chain. 

For retailers (e.g., Amazon), leadtime performance is purely determined by the structure and execution of inventory and distribution policies. But for firms that also manufacture or assemble products (e.g., Dell), the production function is also a driver of performance. Of course, all of the usual methods for achieving manufacturing efficiency (lean, agile, cellular manufacturing, etc.) are relevant to e-commerce settings. As we have noted above, modular product architectures and assemble-to-order production systems are particularly well-adapted to supporting quick-response manufacturing with which to support an e-commerce system. Since the issues of speed, variety, quality and flexibility were clearly priorities prior to the advent of e-commerce, research that addresses these remains relevant but has not been radically affected by the Internet. 

R. Suri. Quick Response Manufacturing A Companywide Approach to Reducing Lead Times. Productivity Press, Portland, OR, 1998. 

Golden, P. (1999). Deere on the run Quick response manufacturing drives supplier development at John Deere. HE Solutions, 31, 24-31. 

The skills and knowledge of those in all chentical and chentical engineering disciplines are needed for these processes. Additionally, collaboration among the disciplines must be cultivated—especially between researchers who synthesize new chenticals and materials and those who develop new processes to manufacture them. There must be parallel integration of fields, so that discoveries quickly lead to useful technology. In a terrorist attack, a quick response is essential, whether it be decontamination of a site or scale-up of drug or vaccine production. 

The U.S. FDA first describes its findings on a form, the so-called "Form 483". This form is completed immediately after the inspection and is sent to the company so that it can initiate the necessary corrective actions. Some corrective actions may have been taken in response to FDA observations during the audit, and the inspector will normally take account of this proartive response. A quick response to the formal issue of a Form 483 is required by the pharmaceutical manufacturer to demonstrate management commitment to the resolution and close out issues identified by the FDA. 

The retailer has heard of a new scheme called quick response (QR). Under this scheme, the manufacturer has to receive the order only four months in advance. This enables the retailer to collect data regarding sales of similar products. These similar product sales enable the retailer to further refine the demand distribution estimates. What will be the impact of QR on the retailer ... 

Iyer, A.V. and M.E. Bergen. Quick Response in Manufacturer-Retailer Channels. Management Science, 43(4) 559—570, April 1997. 

In order to illustrate the need for coordination agreements to implement quick response, consider the example of a retailer Assort that sells womens dresses. The first analysis will use a long lead time relationship between a manufacturer and Assort. In this relationship, the retailer has... 

With the increase in competition, the apparel industry s focus on measures to monitor the PD process has increased. These measures can be used to benchmark with competitors or to adopt best practices. The Measures for Excellence report by the Quick Response Leadership Committee of the American Apparel and Footwear Association, formerly called the American Apparel and Manufacturer s Association (AAMA, 1991), discussed some of these measures. The number of measures used by companies over the time period has increased (Little and Heinje, 1998 Jang et al., 2005). The next sections outline a few first-level measures related to apparel PD that can be used to measure PD performance. The reader is encouraged to refer to the manuscript entitled Measures for New Product Development (Senanayake and Little, 2001), by the author, which discusses a wide range of measures in relation to apparel PD. 

The implementation of lean manufacturing, just-in-time, and quick response concepts caused large manufacturing firms to be seen as too diversified and inflexible to operate efficiently on a dynamically changing market. The management of many companies concluded that... 

The complex chemistries and large quantities of hazardous materials that are integral to semiconductor manufacturing increase the level of chemical concerns among cleanroom employees. Quick response to the concerns is often critical to easing them and can result in rapid action to resolve a hazardous exposure. Also, they help to minimize costly production downtime caused by evacuations. 

One manufacturer has found a way to overcome the lead-time problems so as to be able to quickly respond to fashion. Benetton, an Italian apparel manufacturer makes sweaters in bulk, but delays the dyeing process until after initial sales figures are received from the retailers. In other words, colour choices are made after the manufacture. This approach has increased the cost of production by 10 per cent but has resulted in improved forecasts, less surplus stock and due to quick response to customer demand higher sales which has more than compensated for the inCTease in production cost. Major retailers are responding to challenges of lean and agile supply chain (see Chapter 13) as the following case example of Tesco illustrates. 

To achieve this quick response capability Zara have developed an agile network of closely integrated company-owned and independent manufacturing facilities that have the flexibility to produce in small batches at short notice. Whilst this is not the cheapest way to make a garment, it ensures that they achieve their value proposition. 

In the top left-hand box where lead times are long but demand is predictable then a lean type approach will be appropriate. Materials, components or products can be ordered ahead of demand and manufacturing and transportation facilities can be optimised in terms of cost and asset utilisation. Conversely the bottom right-hand corner is the real domain of the agile supply chain. Here demand is unpredictable but lead times are short, enabling quick response type solutions -the extreme case being make-to-order (but in very short time-frames). 

In the US the quick response initiative in the apparel industry has linked retailers to garment manufacturers and also to the fabric producers through shared information. The impact of this collaboration has been a significant improvement in the competitiveness of that industry. 

As the demand by all partners in the supply chain for a quick response increases, the greater will be the pressure placed upon manufacturing to meet the customer s needs for variety in shorter and shorter time-frames. 

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