Focused Manufacturing
Professor Kleinberg
Braulio Soto, Rob Morris, Evelyn Ozburn, Tiye Cort
Focused Manufacturing
 Basic Concepts
 Characteristics
 Approach
Basic Concepts of a
Focused Factory
 Producing a lower cost is not the only way to compete
 A company cannot perform well all the time
 Simplicity and repetition create competence
Characteristics of a
Focused Factory
 Process Technologies – Typically, unproven and uncertain technologies



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are limited to one per factory. Proven, mature technologies are limited
to what their managers can easily handle, typically two or three.
Market Demands – Quality, Price, lead times, and reliability
specifications.
Product volumes – comparable levels such as tooling, order quantities,
materials handling techniques, and job contents, can be approached
with a consistent philosophy. But what about the inevitable short runs,
customer specials, and one-of-a-kind orders that every factory must
handle? The answer usually is to segregate them.
Quality levels – set approaches to neither over-specify nor over-control
quality and specifications.
Manufacturing Tools – limited to one or two at a time.
Manufacturing Focus
A way to achieve it
Focus the whole manufacturing system
on a limited task that is exactly
represented by the company’s
competitive strategy and its actual
technology and economics.
Guidelines
 Center the factory’s focus on appropriate competitive
skills
 Stay away from the tendency to increase staff and
overhead in order to save on direct labor and capital
investment
 Each manufacturing unit should work on a limited
task instead of a complex mix of opposing objectives,
products and technologies.
Note:
Others may also apply as company sees fit!
How can I achieve a focused plant?
4 step process
1.
Develop a specific, brief statement of corporate objectives and strategy
1.
Should cover the next three to five years and top-management should be involved to
(marketing, finance, control executives etc.)
2.
Translate the statement into: What it means to manufacturing?
1.
What must the factory do well to meet and carry out the corporate strategy?
2.
What will be the most difficult task we face?
3.
If function is not strong where will we most likely fail?
3.
Carefully examine each element of the production system
1.
How is it setup, organized, focused, and manned now?
2.
What is it especially good at now?
3.
How ought it be changed so it can carry out the key manufacturing task?
4.
Reorganize the elements of structure to produce a congruent focus
1.
This means organize it so that it is able to do the limited things that are most important to
completing the manufacturing task.
Wickham Skinner
 Considered the father of Manufacturing Strategy
 Graduated from Yale
 Emeritus professor at Harvard University
 Wrote “The Focused Factory”
Basic Changes in Management of
Manufacturing
 Four Basic Changes
1.
“How can we compete?”
2. Look at efficiency as the whole manufacturing
organization
3. Each plant needs to learn to focus on a limited, concise,
manageable set of products, technologies, volumes, and
markets*
4. Learn to structure basic manufacturing policies and
supporting services so that they focus on one explicit
manufacturing task instead of on many inconsistent,
conflicting, implicit tasks*
*W. Skinner, “The Focused Factory”, Harvard Business Review June 1974
Reasons For Inconsistency
 Professionals in each field attempt to achieve goals
that are not corresponding with goals of other areas
 Manufacturing tasks were never made specific
 Inconsistencies never identified
 Manufacturing task lightly changed while certain
departments like operating and service stayed the
same
 Market & Product Proliferation
Alternative Approaches to
Focusing Facilities
 Based On:
 Products/Markets

Directed for specific customers or product groups
 Processes

Puts products together based on similar processes used
 Manufacturing’s Strategic Task

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Products are assigned to a specific unit based off OW & Q
Task is consistent
Plant-within-a-Plant (PWP)
 Divide existing plant into PWPs
 Physically
 Organizationally
 Each PWP has its only facilities where it can focus on
 Its specified manufacturing task
 Use its own working style
 Production control
 Organizational structure
Results From Using a PWP
 Volume & Quality will not be mixed
 Clear focus for worker training & incentives
 Resources are now shared
 Equipment, engineering processes and materials
handling are specialized as needed
 Decreases focus regression
 Smaller size
Forces That Make it Difficult to
Focus
 Marketing
 Sales
 Manufacturing
 Accounting & Finance
 Corporate Forces
Questions?