Mass vs. Lean Plant Design Evaluation Using the Production System Design Decomposition

摘要

This paper presents a case study comparison of the manufacturing system designs at two North American automotive component manufacturing plants. The study demonstrates that a production system design that is called "lean" or "mass" manufacturing can be evaluated in terms of the achievement of design objectives. A Production System Design Decomposition (PSDD) is used as the basis for evaluating the two plant designs. (Carrus & Cochran, 1998) The results indicate that the performance of the lean plant is better than the mass plant as a result of the lean plant's ability to achieve the objectives of the system design as articulated by the PSDD.