Critical Thinking The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure from customers and competitors in manufacturing as...

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General Management

Critical Thinking
The global marketplace has witnessed an increased pressure fromcustomers and competitors in manufacturing as well as servicesector (Basu, 2001; George, 2002). Due to the rapidly changingglobal marketplace only those companies will be able to survivethat will deliver products of good quality at cheaper rate and toachieve their goal companies try to improve performance by focusingon cost cutting, increasing productivity levels, quality andguaranteeing deliveries in order to satisfy customers (Raouf,1994).
Increased global competition leads the industry to increasingefficiency by means of economies of scale and internalspecialization so as to meet market conditions in terms offlexibility, delivery performance and quality (Yamashina, 1995).The changes in the present competitive business environment arecharacterized by profound competition on the supply side and keenindecisive in customer requirements on the demand side. Thesechanges have left their distinctive marks on the different aspectof the manufacturing organizations (Gomes et al., 2006). With thisincreasing global economy, cost effective manufacturing has becomea requirement to remain competitive.
To meet all the challenges organizations try to introducedifferent manufacturing and supply techniques. Management oforganizations devotes its efforts to reduce the manufacturing costsand to improve the quality of product. To achieve this goal,different manufacturing and supply techniques have been employed.The last quarter of the 20th century witnessed the adoption ofworld-class, lean and integrated manufacturingstrategies that have drastically changed the waymanufacturing firm’s leads to improvement of manufacturingperformance (Fullerton and McWatters, 2002).
Consult chapter 7 of your text book or secondaryavailable data on internet and answer the followingquestions.
Question:
Why Companies adopted Lean Thinking and JIT model?
Discuss major types of Waste, companies has to keep in mindduring production.
Assess the reasons for using lean thinking (suitable examples),what are the benefits from Suppliers to end users?
Due to COVID 19 emergency do you think agile supply chain isthe right concept in this kind of situation? Give reason withexample.
The Answer should be within 4- 5 pages.
The Answer must follow the outline pointsbelow:
Lean Thinking and JIT Concept
Agile Supply chain
Their Main functions
Reasons with suitable Examples
Reference
with APA style reference

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Question 1 Why Companies adopted Lean Thinking and JIT model Lean thinking is a business methodology that aims to provide a new way to think about how to organize human activities to deliver more benefits to society and value to individuals while eliminating waste Lean thinking is a way of thinking about an activity and seeing the waste inadvertently generated by the way the process is organized It uses the concepts of 1 Value 2 Value streams 3 Flow The aim of lean thinking is to create a lean enterprise one that sustains growth by aligning customer satisfaction with employee satisfaction and that offers innovative products or services profitably while minimizing unnecessary overcosts to customers suppliers and the environment Justintime also known as JIT is an inventory management method whereby labor material and goods to be used in manufacturing are refilled or scheduled to arrive exactly when needed in the manufacturing process The focus of JIT is to identify and correct the obstacles in the production process It shows the hidden problems of inventory Just In Time method prevents a company from using excessive inventory and smoothens production operations if a specific task takes longer than expected or a defective part is discovered in the system Advantages of Lean Thinking 1 Increased product quality Improved efficiency frees up employees and resources for innovation and quality control that would have previously been wasted 2 Improved lead times As manufacturing processes are streamlined businesses can better respond to fluctuations in demand and other market variables resulting in fewer delays and better lead times 3 Sustainability Less waste and better adaptability makes for a business thats better equipped to thrive well into the future 4 Employee satisfaction Workers know when their daily routine is bloated or packed with unnecessary work and it negatively affects morale Lean manufacturing boosts not only productivity but employee satisfaction 5 Increased profits And of course more productivity with less waste and better quality ultimately makes for a more profitable company Advantages of Adopting JustInTime include 1 Justintime approach keeps stock holding costs to a minimum level The released capacity results in better utilization of space and bears a favorable impact on the insurance premiums and rent that would otherwise be needed to be made 2 The justintime approach helps to eliminate waste Chances of expired or out of date products do not arise at all 3 As under this management method only essential stocks which are See Answer

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