By John R. Brandt
Remaining competitive is all about improvement — in cost control, productivity, worker safety and customer satisfaction. The 2010 MPI Manufacturing Study identified the top three operations practices and programs in place at plants:
· Continuous improvement program (72% of plants)
· Quality certifications (59% of plants)
· Waste elimination (55% of plants)
The programs and practices least likely to be in use among plants were:
· Open-book management (21% of plants)
· PDCA problem-solving (22% of plants)
· Strategy/policy deployment (30% of plants)
Programs and Practices
All Plants | U.S. Plants | International Plants | |
| Continuous-improvement program | 72.3% | 78.5% | 57.9% |
| Quality certifications (e.g. ISO) | 58.5% | 57.2% | 61.4% |
| Waste elimination (i.e., seven wastes) | 54.6% | 59.1% | 44.3% |
| Benchmarking | 45.6% | 46.2% | 44.3% |
| Value-stream mapping | 38.5% | 48.3% | 15.7% |
| Kaizen events/blitzes | 38.1% | 44.9% | 22.1% |
| Total productive maintenance | 30.5% | 26.8% | 39.3% |
| Strategy/policy deployment | 30.1% | 33.9% | 21.4% |
| PDCA problem-solving | 22.4% | 23.1% | 20.7% |
| Open-book management | 20.7% | 21.2% | 19.3% |
| None of these | 6.2% | 6.2% | 6.4% |
Source: 2010 MPI Manufacturing Study
What programs and practices are missing from your plants?
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The 2011 MPI Manufacturing Study, conducted by the Manufacturing Performance Institute (MPI), with partnership support from Thomas International Publishing Co., is now underway. Participants receive a
free 24-page Executive Summary of this year’s findings and six months of free online access to benchmarks from four years of the study ($495 value): You can anonymously complete the study atwww.mpimanufacturingstudy.com. Participate now.
© 2011 The MPI Group
