Emilio Jiménez Macías

Interrelations among SMED Stages: A Causal Model

Mexico has received a lot of foreign investment that has brought in a wide range of novel production philosophies, such as Single Minute Exchange of Dies (SMED). Despite its popularity and reported effectiveness, Mexican companies often quit SMED implementation as they consider it challenging. This usually happens when organizations are not familiarized enough with each one of the SMED stages or do not know how they are interrelated. In this article the interrelations among the different SMED implementation stages by means of a structural equations model are analyzed. Data for constructing the model were gathered from a survey administered to 250 employees from the Mexican maquiladora industry. The survey assessed the importance of 14 activities belonging to the four SMED stages. The descriptive analyses of these stages were conducted and integrated into a structural equations model as latent variables, to find their level of dependency. The model was constructed using WarpPLS 5 software, and direct, indirect, and total effects among variables are analyzed and validated. Results from the model revealed that Stage 1 of SMED implementation, known as the Identification Stage, has both direct and indirect effects on all the other SMED stages, being the most important stage.

Application of the Systems Dynamics Approach to Model Inventive Problems

The Theory of Inventive Problem Solving (TRIZ) has a broad range of application in today’s industry. Many companies have assimilated this problem-solving approach and unveiled new technological resources for add value and impel the innovation process. Nevertheless, the appropriation effort of TRIZ also revealed several research opportunities; one that has particular significance is the complexity for modeling inventive problems. Typically, TRIZ proposes to model problems through Functional Analysis, Root-Cause Analysis, and other graphical tools. However, these tools are inadequate to represent how one conflict changes in time. Hence, it is not possible to observe the effect of one solution on the system. An approach particularly appropriate to model a system in a period is the System Dynamics Modeling. This article has the purpose of demonstrating that the modeling tools of the System Dynamics can represent inventive problems. In this process, both techniques obtain something useful. In the first place, TRIZ gains a modeling tool, and on the other hand, the System Dynamics Modeling explores the possibility to enrich their problem-solving toolbox. The objective of this article is to demonstrate that it is possible to model any inventive problem through the System Dynamic Modeling approach.