Japanese

Introduction

When you hear it say, “solve the difficult problems with TPiCS,” you might think, “How could no more than 1 or 2 million yen systems do such a thing?” It could happen. Of course, you can’t solve the “difficult problems” with it just because you bought it. You have to understand the basic concepts of production control we advocate, and to put them in practice.
We are not talking about empty wishes. We do have “definite answers” to the problems of production control. The road is never smooth, but it surely leads to real solutions.

We hope you will understand the “definite answers” we have, and we would like you to take a step towards the “solutions to the problems.”

2008/2
TPiCS Laboratory, Inc.

Founder Yoshio Ninomiya

When I write about only an aspect of “you can freely correct data,” people unexpectedly evaluate it from the viewpoint of “internal control” these days. So I would like to mention in the beginning that there are functions such as “Authorization Management” and “Data Correction Log Management” in TPiCS-X. But my explanation in this booklet continues from here on without all of that.

Table of Contents

What are five difficult problems?
(1) Achieving the production for short-term delivery and ready for whatever changes come along
(2) Attempting to make the factory floor observable
(3) Solving the problem of delay
(4) Balancing inventory reduction and the production for short-term delivery
(5) Handling short-term turnaround of new products, and engineering changes

Repetitive Production
(1) Achieving the production for short-term delivery and ready for whatever changes come along with TPiCS-X
(2) Attempting to make the factory floor observable with TPiCS-X
(3) Solving the problem of delay with TPiCS-X
(4) Balancing inventory reduction and the production for short-term delivery with TPiCS-X
(5) Handling short-term turnaround of new products, and engineering changes with TPiCS-X

Discrete Production
(1) Achieving the production for short-term delivery and ready for whatever changes come along with TPiCS-X
Handling short-term turnaround of new products, and engineering changes with TPiCS-X
(2) Attempting to make the factory floor observable with TPiCS-X
(3) Solving the problem of delay with TPiCS-X
(4) Balancing inventory reduction and the production for short-term delivery with TPiCS-X

How to build the production schedule with the nearest two weeks temporarily being fixed
Sharing information with suppliers (SCM Option)
Instructions to the factory floor and the leveling (Shop Floor Control Option)
5S’s and the production control

　Although people say manufacturing business in a few words, what is made is different company by company, and the kinds of products and markets are different. Ways of thinking of the management and the skills the employees might have are different. Moreover, as the history in which the factory have come so far is different, “how to make things,” namely, “production control method” is naturally different.

If you look at it from a different angle, however, in order “to make thing” there’s a narrowly defined production method in which there might be drawings, composition lists and recipes. And there’s a widely defined production method in which there are equipment to make things with and materials to order and to process. These are common things in any manufacturing business.

This is quite easy to understand if compared to “man.” Men are all different but if you think each man has a head, arms, legs, and so on, men are all the same. And you can think of “disease” in the same way. If you eat too much, you have an upset stomach. If you drink sake too much, you ruin your liver. Then, if anybody in the manufacturing business is incapable of sensitively dealing with the needs of customers, he misses a chance. If he responds to them only with inventory, he goes into increasing dead stock in the worst way… This problem is universal.
But what is really difficult is from here on.
Some live up to 90 years old smoking cigarettes all the way and some die of a lung cancer at 40 years old without smoking a cigarette.
If there are products that have few variations and engineering changes, and of which life cycle is long, the way to run the production with plenty of inventory is one answer.
If you think this way, it brings you back to the beginning. But smoking cigarettes is certainly bad for your health - so they say, - and less inventory is always better. To find general problems in specific problems and to create specific answers from general answers; you will need these aspects.
Now what problems are people in the manufacturing business having to begin with? Of course, they must have lots of problems, but I would like to pick up the ones to be solved easily with the production control system among them, or the ones not to be solved only with it but to be improved with it.
And I would like to highlight the mechanism of the problems by generalizing them as much as possible, and to lead them to specific answers.
Thus, I have picked up the following five difficult problems.

　Products have become diverse and their life cycle has been shortened since the bubble economy burst. また、And working speed in the whole society has quickened up due to the rapid progress of IT and we have had to supply for the demand as soon as possible.
For example, it was commonplace to deliver orders in a few months after accepting them in the old days, but people can’t wait that long nowadays.
Trying to supply them from stock results in vast amounts of inventory value, and the production for short-term delivery can’t keep up with parts and materials.
Or, since orders requiring short-term deliveries are already coming from customers, you would simply say with no significant methodology, “We just have to do it,” and you are working in a blind effort. Such a situation we call “problem,” and I’m going to talk about how to solve it.

　The word “manage” basically means to “create the state where anybody can quickly understand things.” Then, the essence of “observable” is, by utilizing “to be able to see,” to improve things and to prevent troubles from happening. I’ll talk about how to realize it using TPiCS-X.

　They say, like a half-funny anecdote, in developing countries even now, “One to two days sounds like common sense.” But, of course, there is no way we can. I’ll talk about how to solve the problem of delay here.

　When you think about the problem from a standpoint of “inventory,” “inventory reduction and the production for short-term delivery” is the contradictory problem in a sense. And when you think about problems of the production control, there are so many “damned if you do, damned if you don't” type of problems.

The above four problems described here are linked all together to one root. From such a standpoint I’m going to talk about how to solve these two problems with balancing them.

　The life cycles of products are shortened and the shortening of development periods of new products is requested.  At the same time it is requested that the production is also anxious to be able to run in top gear. This problem is somewhat different from the above four in nature, and depends largely the “tools.” I’ll talk about how to solve the problem.