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c. Equipment maintenance - Pull production reduces inventories and minimizes buffers. Thus, preventive maintenance processes (TPM) need to ensure minimal equipment breakdowns and production losses. Operators are trained on minor maintenance and troubleshooting activities to tackle localized issues.

d. Supplier involvement - Defect prevention extends backwards to the supplier, given supplier input quality is essential to maintain flow. The manufacturer treats suppliers as long-term partners - aiding them through training and technical support to reduce set-up times, inventories, defects, machine breakdowns, etc.

3.1.4. Production Smoothing

Production runs take place in large batches to minimize set-up / changeover time losses, and achieve high production efficiencies. Actual demand patterns differing from the above tend to place an uneven workload on the system. The process of Heijunka or smoothing synchronises demand with production, thus, evening out the load.

4. Manufacturing in India

4.1 Background

After four decades of protectionism, India undertook wide ranging economic reforms to liberalize and globalize the economy. Internal and international economic activity were de-regulated and liberalized with dismantling of complex industrial licensing systems, opening up economy to private investors, divestment, price decontrol, removal of non-tariff import barriers, reduction in import tariffs and incentives for foreign direct investment and technology inflows.

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