quinta-feira, agosto 03, 2017

O anónimo da província estava certo!

Mais um texto em linha com o que aqui defendemos há anos com base na nossa experiência empírica.  Enquanto os membros da tríade (académicos fechados nas suas torres de marfim, comentadores económicos e políticos) continuam a falar de competitividade com base no século XX e, por isso, estão prisioneiros do eficientismo e das manigâncias com a cotação da moeda, há um outro mundo:
"The manufacturing arm of operations management (OM) has limited itself to a narrow vision of what this key organizational function is supposed to be and do. OM scholars have quibbled about efficiency in factory and supply-chain operations, while giving little attention to tying production forward to end customers. Our view is that this single-minded focus on efficiency has effectively knocked OM research, theory, topics, methods, measures, and practitioner guidance off kilter.
On the industry side, a narrow view of OM mirrors the single- minded focus that we observe in academia. Manufacturers proudly display factories that have been cleared of targeted wastes and are marvels of short flow times, low work-in-process in- ventories, and high capacity utilization. They may also point to similar achievements with key suppliers. A closer look, howeveroften reveals a supply chain with extended lead times [Moi ici: Aposto que, como eu, não sabia que o Toyota Production System, essa maravilha de organização e eficiência (sem ironia) congela a previsão de produção com 8 semanas de antecedênciaand swollen finished-goods inventories that dwarf the low in-plant inventories. The overall supply chain often loses the ability to compete on anything except cost. The resulting vulnerability to low-cost competition leads to offshoring.
Inability to synchronize with downstream demand increases production cost through supply-demand mismatches, delays in addressing quality issues - even mass product recalls, and customer defections. These negative outcomes are commonplace even in factories held up as bastions of “best practices”.
...
A major deterrent to CP [Moi ici: Concurrent production] adoption is the tendency both in companies and among the OM academic community to focus on localized efficiency to the neglect of responsiveness in fulfilling customer needs. Manufacturing people have limited interaction with final users, so the cost of valuing efficiency above responsiveness goes unnoticed. In consequence, manufacturing-improvement efforts tend to be limited to pursuit of within-factory efficiencies: short internal flows, smoothed sched- ules, and high capacity utilization.
...
manufacturers in their quest for operational efficiency prefer factory operatives to be always busy making products. CP, on the other hand, welcomes the situation in which both equipment and its operators are idle for lack of current demand.
...
Another managerial mindset that hinders CP implementation is the assumption that it is better to reduce changeover times on a single piece of equipment than to duplicate that equipment. Along similar lines, we have seen manufacturers replacing multiple units with a single large, flexible piece of equipment. ... done for the sake of “... improved efficiency and productivity”. This way of thinking culminates in “monument” machines: high-speed, multi-functional equipment that gives the impression of being extremely efficient. ... that engineers “... typically think at the process level,” seeking efficiencies “... by combining operations with[in] a single piece of equipment.” This “can cause a disconnect with general management who want to increase sales, make gains in market share, or find new sources of revenue by adding product lines.”"
Agora metam neste cenário os fanáticos da automatização que só pensam no eficientismo e se esquecem de Mongo: rapidez, flexibilidade e variedade crescente para servir tribos cada vez mais exigentes.

Continua.

Trechos retirados de "Missing link in competitive manufacturing research and practice: Customer-responsive concurrent production" publicado por Journal of Operations Management 49-51 (2017) 83-87

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