Previous

Page - 2

This paper highlights the key elements of lean manufacturing, its drivers in India and the challenges it presents to manufacturers in the Indian context. It concludes with a set of recommendations for the government with a view to provide an enabling environment for lean manufacturing.

2. Evolution of Modern Manufacturing

The automobile industry worldwide, especially the American and Japanese, has dramatically transformed the nature, the character, and the shape of work for the modern manufacturing. We present a brief snapshot of manufacturing evolution from the lens of the automotive industry evolution.

When automobiles first emerged during the early 1900s, manufacturing rested on a craft system of production utilizing the discreet and complicated skills of craft workers from foundries, machine shops, etc. The process of change started with Henry Ford's vision of producing an inexpensive automobile. In 1913, after years of struggling with the craft system, Ford evolved a moving assembly-line system. Ford engineers rearranged and transformed the automobile manufacturing and labor processes. The new processes utilized interchangeability of parts and standardization of tasks to cut down on assembly times from 13 hours to 1.5 hours.

In 1945, post-war Japan was grappling with shortages in capital, material and labour. Taiichi Ohno of Toyota recognized that the mass production system was not suited to the Japanese context. Ohno evolved a dynamic process over the next few decades. The processes included Cellular Manufacturing, Just-in-Time (JIT), Kanban, TPM and TQM.

Next

* Contributed by -
Amandeep S. Bedi & Namit Puri,
Indian School of Business (ISB),
Hyderabad.