Facilitating Lean Manufacturing with MPM (Manufacturing Process Management) in the Medical Device Industry

摘要

Manufacturing Process Management, or MPM, is a discipline widely recognized by industry analysts and consultants as a key part of a successful product development strategy. MPM allows companies to effectively manage all of the resources, operations, and components that go in to the production process. By doing so, companies are able to effectively communicate between all stakeholders in the process, including product designers, engineers, and even contract manufacturers, and suppliers. This helps to ensure that products are delivered to market as fast as possible and at the highest possible quality. In the Medical Device Industry, documenting process is important both for regulatory approval and for facilitating lean. MPM enables lean manufacturing by pro viding the tools necessary to create an optimal assembly process and flow, automatically calculate kanban sizes, and easily transfer processes from line to line or factory to factory. In today's complex product development environment, the ability to electronically document and archive this is paramount to the success of an ongoing lean initiative. In many cases, companies rely heavily on the services of so called "lean consultants" that typically help with only a single project or map the value stream in a static environment. Because products and technology rapidly change, the lean initiative often ends as time passes. By using MPM in your manufacturing strategy you are able to document, re-use, and automate the change process inevitable in every manufacturing environment and Lean initiative.