Hiroshi Katayama

Agility, adaptability and leanness: A comparison of concepts and a study of practice

This paper deals with three concepts of concern to manufacturing management; agile manufacturing, adaptable production and lean production. These are described and compared within the context of the modern competitive situation in Japan. A survey of Japanese firms is described where the concepts are explored through a number of questions concerned with strategy, action programmes and performance measures. Many companies have responded to the change in economic conditions through a modification of their production operations and by changing their cost structure. The results suggest that companies are trying to realise their cost adaptability through agility enhancement activities.

Lean production in a changing competitive world: a Japanese perspective

Describes the basic concept of lean production and the recent trend in Japanese manufacturing which has been towards a cycle comprising price competition, cost reduction, a proliferation of new products, higher fixed costs, increased break even points and lower profits. Explains how Japan’s recent recession has caused the cycle to be broken and considers how factors relating to the external and internal environment have influenced the viability of lean production within Japan’s emerging competitive climate. Uses case studies of four manufacturing plants to identify problems, solutions and the need for a new approach to production systems design where costs are more sensitive to changes in demand. Proposes the concept of adaptable production as an approach which can accommodate to greater changes in demand than lean production.

On a two-stage hierarchical production planning system for process industries

Abstract The objective of this paper is to propose a relevant production planning procedure for multi-item continuous production by the specified petrochemical plant, which is one of the typical processes of petrochemical companies. The tough problem of such production system management is to determine the product-mix to be produced in the current planning period based on termwise forecasts of demand quantities, constraints of plant capability, etc. Most of the current procedures operated in actual factories are empirical heuristic approach and were relevant under stable demand structure. However, due to their rough structure and recent versatile market needs, inefficient utilisation of plant and growing indirect resources consumption for production activity such as man-power of management become urgent problems. From this point of view, a systematic procedure to eliminate such difficulties is proposed in terms of a two-stage automated hierarchical planning procedure, consisting of both a coordination function between production periods and an efficient job lot sequencing function. Then, the feasibility and relevance of the system are investigated through quantitative simulation experiments for further consideration of actual implementation.

An integrated management procedure of multi-item mixed-line production system - Its hierarchical structure and performance evaluation

This paper proposes a design procedure of multi-item mixed-line production system in which various jigs, tools, capable facilities as well as skilled workers are equipped to enhance the capability of product variety. Major traditional technologies for the design of such production systems are classified into two categories, i.e. Line Balancing (LB) procedures which focus on balanced allocation of production resources, and Job Sequencing (JS) procedures which focus on balanced utilization of resources. In this paper, a conventional algorithm minimizing the number of stations is considered for the LB procedure, and an effective sequencing logic based on the ordinary Target Chasing Method (TCM) is proposed as a JS procedure for stable production as well as line stop aversion. Both of these procedures are integrated in terms of a two-stage hierarchical design procedure and its performance is investigated by simulation experiments under various conditions to ascertain its relevance.

Some advanced semiconductor production-inventory management systems and their performances

Abstract The critical Issues of memory chip manufacturing management are the fluctuation of manufacturing yield rates and demand quantity. To cope with, these problems generated by such uncertainty, this paper deals with two types of advanced production-inventory management system of memory chip fabrication, which consist of yield estimation, repairing operation of inferior goods and adjustment procedure of production quantities based on the production quantity planning procedure with in-process buffer. Quantitative characteristics of the proposed systems are investigated through simulation experiments and comparison analysis between current and proposed systems is performed to clarify their relevancy.

Particle identification system for semiconductor manufacturing

This paper deals with the subsystem of yield management for semiconductor manufacturing. One of the major causes of defects in semiconductor products is the adherence of particles on the wafer, and reduction of such phenomena will be one of the most relevant policies to realize higher yield performance. Aiming to improve the yield of such products, this paper focuses on classifying the types of identification errors for each particle, and analyses the error characteristics of the current particle-monitoring/identification procedure through computer simulation. Further, a revised procedure is proposed to realize better identification performance.