In this chapter, we describe in somewhat more depth the complexities of how lean production affects the manufacturing function. We look at both major process changes and enabling tools. We provide specific examples of lean implementation efforts and the savings that resulted. The companies that participated in this study demonstrated many lean pilot projects where savings were achieved in manuf...

Light and heavy manufacturing contribute a great deal to the Italian economy and the products manufactured in this sector form a major part of the exports. Most of the manufacturing industries center around small or medium-sized firms, but there are some larger companies too. Although automation will characterize work in the future, manual labour will remain important for Italian manufacturing ...

Today’s complex manufacturing systems operate in a changing environment rife with uncertainty. The performance of manufacturing companies ultimately hinges on their ability to rapidly adapt production to current internal and external circumstances. Partly based on a running national research project on digital enterprises and production networks, the paper illustrates how the concepts of intell...

Today, for many companies, there are large numbers of manufacturing equipments. To better utilize manufacturing resources, it is necessary to classify the equipments into a few groups. In this paper, the hybrid algorithm of fuzzy clustering algorithm (FCM) and genetic algorithm (GA) is implemented to group manufacturing resources. An application sample is developed and its results are analyzed....

Today’s complex manufacturing systems operate in a changing environment rife with uncertainty. The performance of manufacturing companies ultimately hinges on their ability to rapidly adapt their production to current internal and external circumstances. Partly based on a running national research project on digital enterprises and production networks, the paper illustrates how the concepts of ...

Virtual Reality (VR) is amongst the technologies that have existed as early as the 1960s. Only until recently it has resurrected and is making a comeback into many shapes and forms of our daily lives. This paper describes in general the use of VR tools in the manufacturing sector. Examples of successful adoption of VR technologies in manufacturing companies and organisations are described. Issu...

The implementation of lean manufacturing concepts has had a significant impact on various industries. Many companies around the world have attempted to implement lean manufacturing, but the lack of an obvious understanding of lean measurement and its performance has caused its implementation to fail. This paper presents an innovative approach by using fuzzy TOPSIS to measure the production lean...

Green supply chain management is an increasingly recognized practice among companies that are seeking to improve environmental performance. Of particular concern is how to arouse organizational awareness and put green activities into practice in order to enhance manufacturing performances. This paper investigates the correlation of green supply chain practices and manufacturing performances in ...

Reconfiguration is a significant area of after-sales, esp ecially for companies with configurable products. In this paper, the field of reconfiguration is characterised and a framework for reconfiguration is presented on the basis of experiences gathered from Finnish manufacturing companies. Although the state of the practice leaves much room for improvement, reconfiguration is an important bus...

The increasingly competitive markets of the 1990s are generally perceived to be demanding higher-quality and higher-performing products, in shorter and more predictable development cycle-times, and at lower cost. Product development must therefore increasingly be managed as a concurrent, multi-disciplinary process. In terms of the manufacturing function and suppliers this is re#ected in recomme...