LEAN SET-UPS THE NASCAR WAY

摘要

In the old days, a typical furniture factory waited to accumulate several hundred orders of a particular grouping before making a "cutting." It was common for customers to be in a holding pattern for eight or more weeks until their orders were filled. If the quantity of orders for a new group did not measure up to the minimum quantity to manufacture, either the customer was told that the group was being discontinued or the product was outsourced to a smaller manufacturer. The reason? It took so much time to change the setup of machinery when switching from one product to another that the number of these setups needed to be kept to a minimum by making larger quantities of these products and by producing them fewer times during the year.