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Production Planning & Control: The Management

of Operations
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information:
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Implementation of continuous flow

manufacturing (CFM) system
a a
S. K. Mukhopadhyay & Pradip Kr. Nandi
a
National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) , Vihar Lake, Mumbai,
400087, India
Published online: 15 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: S. K. Mukhopadhyay & Pradip Kr. Nandi (2000) Implementation of continuous flow
manufacturing (CFM) system, Production Planning & Control: The Management of Operations, 11:5, 511-519, DOI:
10.1080/09537280050052004

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 PRODUCTION PLANNING & CONTROL, 2000, VOL. 11, NO. 5, 511 ± 519

Implementation of continuous ¯ ow manufacturing

(CFM) system
S. K. MUKHOPADHYAY and PRADIP KR. NANDI
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Keywords continuous ¯ ow manufacturing, push system, the achievement of improved customer responsiveness, greater
manufacturing e ciencies e ciencies, lower inventories and lower operating costs. This
paper describes the way in which one such contract manufac-
turer was moved towards the CFM system and the bene® ts
Abstract. In a world of global competition and demanding achieved through it.
customers, putting production requirements ahead of custo-
mer’ s needs inevitably leads to manufacturing ine ciencies,
higher inventories, and poor quality goods and services. In con- 1. Introduction
tinuous ¯ ow manufacturing ( CFM) system, the manufacturer
makes how much and what is needed, and also when it is Companies throughout the world are moving from
needed. A leading multinational company in oral care products
produces toothbrushes through contract manufacturers ( CMs). `just-in-case’ to `just-in-time’ ( JIT) manufacturing
The contract manufacturer makes di€ erent stock-keeping units systems. This means that companies are moving from
(SKUs) under two options: (i) the contract manufacturing manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) to continu-
option, in which CM supplies the ® nished products; ( ii) the ous ¯ ow manufacturing. The in¯ exibility and ine cien-
labour contract, in which CM is responsible only for conversion. cies built into the MRP II system are the primary reasons
Competitive pressure in the market pressures the company to
change the operating system from the push system to CFM for to change to the CFM system. MRP II is essentially a
CMs also. Moving from the push system with its high level of push system, designed to push materials and work-in-
inventories to continuous ¯ ow manufacturing system enables progress (WIP), according to a master production plan

A uthors: S. K. Mukhopadhyay and P. Kr. Nandi, National Institute of Industrial Engineering

(NITIE) , Vihar Lake, Mumbai 400087, India.
S. K. M UKHOP A DHY A Y has been serving as a Professor at the National Institute of Industrial
Engineering ( NITIE) , Vihar Lake, Mumbai 400087, India since 1980. Before being a Professor he
worked as Assistant Professor in the same institute from 1978. Prior to joining the academics, he
was with Defence Research & Development Organization from 1962. He received his Bachelor
Degree in Mechanical Engineering and Master Degree in Mechanical Engineering, and PhD from
Jadavpur University, Calcutta. He has had many publications in International J ournal of Production
Research, OPSEARCH, Production Planning and Control, M aintenance M anagement International, J ournal of
Engineering Production, J ournal of the Institution of Engineers (India) etc. He was an active member of
New York Academy of Sciences. Professor Mukhopadhyay has been cited in the Dictionary of
International Biography, WHO’s WHO in Asia and Paci® c Nation by the International
Biographical Centre, Cambridge, UK. He is included in the Marquis WHO’s WHO in the
world and also in WHO’s WHO in Science and Engineering. He has to his credit numerous
other awards and prizes in his vocation of teaching and research.
P. K. N A NDI was born in Calcutta, India. He received his BSc in Chemistry (Honors) and
B Tech. in Chemical Engineering from University of Calcutta, Calcutta, India, and Post-
Graduation in Industrial Engineering from National Institute of Industrial Engineering
(NITIE) , Mumbai, India. His research interests concern materials and logistics management,
and production planning and control.

Production Planning & Control ISSN 0953± 7287 print/ISSN 1366± 5871 online # 2000 Taylor & Francis Ltd
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
 512 S. K . M ukhopadhyay and P. K r. N andi

orchestrated by work orders. While MRP II is good at Nylon Handles NS Wire

counting, tracking the production process, and establish- NYLON CUTTING BRISTLING
ing the true costs of production, it is ine cient when
Blisters &
coping with daily plant ¯ oor constraints (Moran 1993). TRIMMING Baker sheets
Cartons
PUTTING ON
CARTON PACKING BLISTERS & PUTTING
1.1. About the manufacturer BOPP BAKER SHHETS

A study was conducted in a multinational company WRAPPING SEALING

cited in Fortune 500, manufacturing toothpaste and Cellophane

toothbrushes located at Mumbai, India. The study was DOZEN PACKING

CUTTING

made for toothbrush manufacturing. This particular Dispensers

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Shippers
product is manufactured through a number of contract PUTTING INTO
PUUTING INTO
manufacturers also, located at di€ erent corners of the SHIPPERS
DISPENSERS
Shippers
country. This paper describes the way in which CFM
was implemented in one such manufacturer ’s premises. PUUTING INTO
SHIPPERS
The manufacturer operates under labour contract for the
company and at present has four stock-keeping units
(SKUs). The manufacturer supplies ¹1.6 million brushes
per month. A need was felt to streamline the product TO STORE

¯ ows, reducing the WIP materials, and suggest a method Figure 1. Block diagram of the manufacturing process.
that helps in reduction of lead time thereby increasing
labour productivity and decreasing overall operating
costs. We preferred to use CFM on the shop-¯ oor activ- . The number of nylon ® bres per tuft should be
ities because of non-conformity of inbound integration in within a speci® c range.
the production activities of the manufacturer. . Each nylon ® bre should be end rounded. Trimming
and end rounding are performed simultaneously by
the same machine.

2. Manufacturing overview
3. Literature review

The basic raw materials that go into production of According to Beal (1988), continuous ¯ ow manu-
toothbrushes are nylon, pre-moulded holes handles and facturing is a philosophy that concentrates on the elim-
NS (nickel± silver) wire. Brushes are dispatched either as ination of waste, total quality control and total work
carton packed or blister packed. For carton packing, force involvement as a means of achieving and sustaining
carton (paper) , BOPP, cellophane and shippers are manufacturing competitiveness. This implies that CFM is
used; and for blister packing, blister (PVC), baker sheets concerned with doing the right job, without error, and
(paper) and dispensers are used. Figure 1 shows the with an attitude that looks for continuous improvement.
manufacturing process. The key features that matter The same de® nition is given by Bowers (1991). Funk
most in the process are as follows. (1989) has described CFM as one of the attributes of
the JIT manufacturing system, whereas many of the
. NS wire is used to ensure the appropriate pull attributes of the JIT system are highly interdependent.
strength. Other attributes of the JIT system are `zero defects’,
. Nylon cutting, bristling, trimming/end rounding, `preventive maintenance’, `standard operation’, `multi-
wrapping are machine operated while others are functional workers’, etc. CFM requires zero defects, pre-
manually operated. ventive maintenance and standard operations in order to
. Female workers perform manual operations, hence prevent line stoppage. It also requires multifunctional
those operations are done in one shift only. workers and standard operations to balance the output
. Each SKU is available with six± eight colours, and from each work centre in the production line (Dibono
with hard, medium and soft category (depending on 1997) .
the nylons used). Bowers (1991) has suggested the following six generic
. Each dozen pack should contain a minimum of six areas of every manufacturing line where the CFM
colours. approach can be used.
 Implementation of CFM system 513

(1) Sector-by-sector analysis. (batch) type manufacturing to continuous ¯ ow manu-

(2) Set-up time reduction. facturing. According to Ahrens et al. (1992), removing
(3) Operation improvement. these hurdles causes an organization to rethink the fol-
(4) Pull system WIP management. lowing.
(5) Process ¯ ow improvement.
(6) Defect reduction. . Rethink and change operating assumptions, philo-
sophy and concepts. This requires a paradigm shift
or change resulting in cultural change in business.
3.1. Principles of CFM . Rethink and streamline material and product ¯ ows.
. Rethink and change traditional divisional responsi-
Achieving the quantum bene® ts of ¯ ow manufacturing bilities and power between o ce and plant people
is not a plug-and-play process. It requires ongoing com- by subordinating all activities to the shop-¯ oor.
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mitment to the principles of CFM and repose greater . Rethink and change suppliers’ relationships and
trust in both employees and suppliers. agreements.
The three principles of CFM as mentioned by Beal
(1988) can be applied across the total manufacturing
enterprise, from the time orders are placed with suppliers 3.3. T echniques used for CFM
to the time the product has been installed in the cus-
tomer’s location. They are listed below. Beal (1988) has reported a set of 12 related techniques
for CFM as follows.
(1) Elimination of waste. Focuses on improving the
e€ ectiveness of materials process. If an activity (1) Work-in-process (WIP) reduction.
does not add value, then it should not be done. (2) Application of group technology.
Operations that purely add cost will be systemati- (3) Balanced/mixed production.
cally eliminated. (4) Kanban system.
(2) Total quality control. Focuses on improving the (5) Using tightly coupled logistics.
e ciency of materials processes. This does not (6) Supply chain integration.
rely on the QA or QC department, but gives the (7) Achieving zero defects.
quality of an operation to the person who performs (8) Organizing multi-skilled system.
it. (9) Focus team e€ orts.
(3) People involvement. The most valuable resource (10) Preventive maintenance.
of an enterprise is the human being. People are (11) Management by sight.
closer to how things work and why things go (12) Set-up reduction.
wrong. They must be unambiguously encouraged
throughout in order that their involvement is total
and that searches for continuous improvement.
4. Facilities and resources

3.2. Chang es in the organization’s mindset The plant comprises two adjacent rooms of 50 £ 20 ft
each, and one storeroom. The machinery installed are
It takes a tremendous amount of conviction and shown in table 1.
resolve to make the transformation from traditional job The manpower positioned are:

Table 1.

Machine Number Capacity* Dimension{ Operators/machine

Bristling 8 2.3 5:5 £ 5 1

Trimming/end rounding 3 2.5 5:5 £ 5 2
Wrapping 2 3.2 6 £ 3:5 1
Sealing 3 2.7 4 £ 3:5 2
Cutting 2 2.25 4£3 2
* Capacity (millions/month) is based on product mix (considering machine availability) .
{ Dimensions (ft £ ft) include the position of operator(s) and other required accessories.
 514 S. K . M ukhopadhyay and P. K r. N andi

14 6 6 14 14 14

SM 1 TM TM SM 1 TOILET TM TM
TOILET TOILET 6.5 TOILET 6.5
3 2 3 2

SM 2 SM 2
TO TO
STORE STORE
SM 3 SM 3
B5 B5

CM CM
1 1 WM 1 B4
WM 1 B4 T4

CM CM
T4 WM 2
2 WM 2 2 B3
50 B3
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31
B2
B2
B8
B8 31
50
B1
T3 B1 T3
B7
B7

TM
TM B6
B6 1
1

T OFFICE T OFFICE 9
T OFFICE T OFFICE 9
2 1
2 1

8
8

(a) ( b)
Figure 2. (a) Product ¯ ow in earlier layout for carton-packed brushes. (b) Product ¯ ows in earlier layout for blistered-packed brushes.
Notations used in Ž gure 2a and 2b:
B1 to B8 : Bristling machines
TM 1 to TM 3: Trimming/end rounding machines
WM 1 and WM 2: Wrapping machines
SM 1 to SM 3: Sealing machines
CM 1 and CM 2: Cutting machines
T 1, T 2: Inspection table
T 3: Filling table
T 4: Final packing table.
All dimensions shown in ® gure 2a and 2b are in feet.
Three di€ erent lines are used to show product ¯ ows:
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: for bristled brushes
± ::± ::± ::± ::± ::± ::± ::± ::± ::± for brushes after trimming/end rounding
Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð for brushes in cartons/blisters
NB.
Bristling machines are kept at an angle to utilize the space. B6, B7 and B8 are used mainly for blister-packed brushes. B1 is used for
small-sized brushes particularly.

(1) total direct labours= 79; ¹250 brushes per tray. Brushes in blisters/cartons are
(2) o cers and staffs= 7. handled in bins of dimension 2 £ 1:5 £ 1:5 f t (height).
The capacity of each bin is ¹500 and 1000 brushes per
bin for blister-packed and carton-packed brushes, re-
4.1. M aterials handling and layout spectively. The transfer from one workstation to another
is performed manually and in bulk.
Bristled and trimmed/end rounded brushes are The layout and materials ¯ ows are shown in ® gure
handled in trays of dimension 2 f t £ 1:5 f t £ 3 in (height). 2( a) and (b) for carton-pac ked and blister-packed
The capacity of each tray (varies from brush to brush) is brushes, respectively.
 Implementation of CFM system 515

5. Production planning PRODUCTION PLANNING

Materials handling
No intimation with
Change over are high and not No proper
suppliers before
After obtaining the monthly demand (subject to time is high systematic production
planning
High WIP planing
change) from the company, the total requirements of Only 2 SKUs are procedure No plan to supply
Low process
each SKU are divided by four to obtain the weekly pro- supplied in each
capability index
all SKUs in each
Improper layout QC
duction requirements. The monthly demand is given well High lead time of
of bristling m/c Less
capacity
Space
in advance, but it also can change, even in the current production
constraints
utilization HIGH LEAD TIME
AND COST OF
month. This is one of the challenges for the manufacturer Unavailability of MANUFACTURING
to cope with changed demand immediately. This is one of right colour handles
at right time
the reasons the company pressures the manufacturers Materials not
available on Fluctuation in
(contractors) to move towards the CFM system. The time demand
Handles are not
manufacturer is able to satisfy the monthly demand,
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supplied in time
but the operating costs and lead time seem to be high, with required colors

and CM is able to supply only two SKUs at each QC

(quality checking is performed twice a week). PURCHASE COMPANY

Figure 3. Cause and e€ ect diagram.

6. Problem analysis
. Change over time from one SKU to another.
6.1. Flaws of the system . Variation in demand of a particular SKU.
. Output varies from one SKU to another.
After comprehensive study of the system, the following . Output per bristling machine and trimming
¯ aws were identi® ed. machine do not match and the ratios of outputs
from these two machines vary from SKU to SKU.
. WIP is high and scattered.
. Materials handling is excessive and not systematic.
. Facilities required for successive operations are not
placed adjacent to each other. 7. New system
. Inspection is carried out separately.
. After each operation, materials (WIP) do not move From the problem analysis (cause and e€ ect diagram,
immediately and do move as a lot. ® gure 3) and materials ¯ ows [® gure 2( a) and (b)], it is
. Only two SKUs out of four are supplied at each QC clear that the movement is haphazard and excessive. Due
(twice per week). to this reason, WIP, lead time of production, and operat-
. High lead time. ing costs are high. In the CFM system materials should
. Poor capacity utilization. ¯ ow according to the process sequence in the line layout
or in U-shaped layout, and should ¯ ow as a single piece.
To understand the nature of ¯ aws, refer to the cause Streamlined product ¯ ows simplify the operating envir-
and e€ ect diagram in ® gure 3. onment making it easier for everyone to visualize product
material ¯ ows from raw materials to ® nished products. In
shops with randomly located, independently scheduled
6.2. Constraints diverse processes, people are slaves to complex systems
making meaningful grass roots productivity improve-
In CFM, the system constraints are to be properly ments di cult. Cause and e€ ect relationships cannot
managed and those should be eliminated as far as poss- readily be identi® ed (Ahrens et al. 1992) .
ible. The constraints which require probing are as fol- The analysis highlights symptoms, e.g. congestion of
lows. materials, excessive amount of work in process, poor
utilization of space, long transportati on lines, long pro-
. Floor space. duction lines and delays in delivery. These point out the
. Number of SKUs. need to redesign the layout.
. Manual operations (packing) are performed in one Hence, redesigning the layout was considered to be the
shift only. ® rst step to streamlining the ¯ ow and making it easier to
. The dust coming out from trimming machines visualize the product ¯ ows. A plant layout has a marked
causes problem to workers. e€ ect on utilization of space and equipment, on transpor-
. Absenteeism of workers. tation problems, on the amount of WIP, and on produc-
 516 S. K . M ukhopadhyay and P. K r. N andi

14 6 20 14 6 20

BLISTER TOILET B B B 6.5 BLISTER TOILET B B B 6.5

10 FORMING 9 8 7 10 FORMING 9 8 7

8 GATE 3.5 GATE 3.5

GATE

W W W W
6 6a 6b B6 6 6a 6b B6
2 W3 TM W3 TM
W 3 W 3
2c B5 2c B5
SM 1 SM 2 6 T2 SM 1 SM 2 T2
9 9
W TM B4 W TM B4
2b 2b
W4 2 WIP 4 2
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3
CM CM B3 31 CM CM B3 31
7 WM 7
1 2 6 W 1 2 W
WM
2a TM 2a TM
2 B2 2 B2
W W W W
6 7a 7b 5 W5 3 6 7a 7b W5
W B1 W B1
1 1
6 T3 T3

12 12
T4 T4
OFFICE T1 OFFICE 9 OFFICE T1 OFFICE 9

GATE
10
TO
8 TEMPORARY STORAGE OF FINISHED PRODUCTS STORE
TEMPORARY STORAGE OF FINISHED PRODUCTS

Figure 4. New layout. Figure 5. Product ¯ ows in new layout.

Notations used for Ž gures 4 and 5:
B1 to B9 : Bristling machines which was implemented. Product ¯ ows are shown in
TM 1 to T 3: Trimming/end rounding machines ® gure 5. In the new layout the ergonomics considerations
WM: Wrapping machines
SM: Sealing machines were also applied.
CM: Cutting machines The key features of this layout are as follows.
T 1: Table for on-line sampling inspection
T 2: Filling table for carton-packed brushes
T 3: Final packing table for carton-packed brushes . No spaces are kept for separate inspection. The
T 4: Final packing table for blister-packed brushes inspection will be on-line. No defective items will
W 1: WIP for bristled brushes, capacity ˆ 60 000 brushes be pushed from any workstation.
W 2a, W 2b and W 2c: WIP for trimmed brushes . The person taking out the brushes from the trim-
W 3: WIP for trimmed brushes, capacity ˆ 20 000 brushes
W 4: WIP, after putting into cartons, capacity ˆ 20 000 brushes
ming/end rounding machine will put them on blis-
W 5: WIP, after wrapping, capacity ˆ 25 000 brushes ters. The sealing machine operator will use the
W 6a and W 6b : WIP, after putting into blisters, baker sheet. Earlier trimmed brushes were put on
capacity ˆ 25 000 brushes the blisters in a separate workstation along with the
W 7a and W 7b : WIP, after cutting, capacity ˆ 32 000 brushes baker sheets. In each case, the sealing machine
Two di€ erent lines show the product ¯ ows as: operator used to perform adjustments before putting
Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð Ð for carton-packed brushes into sealing machines. This will reduce one work-
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: for blister-packed brushes
station and space requirement, as well as WIP.
NB. . Particular spaces are provided for WIP. This does
Capacities ( WIP) are calculated based on the consideration not imply that WIP will ® ll these spaces. These are
that brushes will be kept on trays and bins. The blister-forming
machine is added, it is used to make blisters from PVC sheet.
kept to meet any emergency situation. The spaces
kept for WIP can hold a maximum of one-day’s
tion control. The best layout for any CFM system is to production. Particular space is provided to keep
make a dedicated line for each SKU preferably in U- brushes which are trimmed during the night shift
shaped or line ¯ ow. But considering the constraints and and waiting for packing (planned WIP). For the
investment required, the layout with streamlined ¯ ows same reason, spaces are provided before and after
and with less materials handling is given in ® gure 4, the wrapping machine.
 Implementation of CFM system 517

. Based on the capacity of the bottleneck machine either the void is ® lled (by catching up) , or the
(considering the product mix), one wrapping void reaches the end of the line. The void can-
machine and one sealing machine are removed. not be ® lled unless catch-up work is performed
. Space is kept for installing the blister-forming in an unscheduled manufacturing time.
machine. Installation of the blister-forming machine . Running all the SKUs in parallel. Packing for
will reduce the lead time in the supply chain on-line production and WIP (those have been
. Space can be provisioned for the ninth bristling made the previous night) are to be performed in
machine. The capacities of other machines are ade- parallel.
quate. . Store WIP (if required) in de® ned places.
. One gate between two rooms is opened, while the
main gate of the second room is closed.
. There are three distinct product ¯ ow lines, one for
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8. Proposed production planning

carton-packed and two for blister-packed brushes.
In-between passage will not be used for product
The manufacturer has been suggested to carry out
¯ ow or any WIP store. The nylon cutting machine
daily production planning instead of weekly planning,
is kept outside (as it was in the earlier system and it
based on resource availability. The control action can
is not shown in earlier or present layout).
be taken as and when required. This will reduce the
. After redesigning the layout, a few practices were
lead time of production and WIP. Because packing is
introduced in the production lines in order to obtain
not done in the night, the WIP must move simul-
the actual bene® ts of the CFM system, e.g. as fol-
taneously with on-line jobs. Otherwise, WIP manage-
lows.
ment will be di cult. Only within the production lines
. Pull system WIP managementÐ pull the
is the CFM system implemented. In future, the same
materials from the previous workstation instead
should be implemented throughout the supply chain.
of pushing the materials to the next worksta-
tion.
. Do not pull materials as a lot. A single job mov-
ing from operation to operation essentially 9. Implementation
accumulates process time as its cycle time.
Here one tray of brushes is taken as one unit Before changing the layout the pros and cons were
for material movements. vividly discussed with management, and once they were
. Do not run the preceding operation if there is convinced, it was explained to the workers to make them
no o€ take by the succeeding workstation comfortable with the change. To e€ ect change in the
(except for the bristling machine, which is the layout one schedule was made to minimize the disturb-
bottleneck machine in the total production ances in the production lines. Workers were given on-the-
line) . According to the principle of optimum job training. Practices as discussed earlier were
production technology (OPT), balance the introduced slowly after changing the layout. Material
¯ ow and not the capacity, the level of utiliza- movements and WIP were controlled for a few days.
tion is not determined by its own potential but Because of time restriction some of the following im-
by some other constraints of the system. portant issues could not be resolved which might have
. Work `upsets’ before pulling new work. Recover enhanced the e ciency and e€ ectiveness of the CFM
from upsets as quickly as possible. As in conven- system.
tional lines, CFM lines accumulate jobs at the
downstream operations. With CFM, however, . Management by sight. Each workstation will have
there is a noticeable void created beyond the one board where daily production targets will be
breakdown as the ¯ ow stops. The void repre- given and some practices will be highlighted as pro-
sents empty takt cycles (takt is the nominal time duction principles, e.g. do not allow defective item
between the jobs in the ¯ ow; it is the inverse of to pass, keep YOUR machine clean (one attribute
¯ ow) . Each job processing time is necessary to of 5Ss), do not run your machine if there is no o€
`catch up’ with the state of production if no take (except for the bottleneck machine), and
upset had occurred. The missing operation attend to the problem immediately.
time, of course, keeps building until the upset . Training of workers. Train them to be multi-skilled.
is ® xed and regular work resumes. After the Encourage them to suggest any improvement and
operation restarts, the job void will continue help them to implement it (provided it improves the
to encompass more and more operations until productivity of the organization ).
 518 S. K . M ukhopadhyay and P. K r. N andi

Table 2.

Measures Earlier system New system

Lead time 3± 4 days 24 h (maximum)

WIP 224 000 brushes at di€ erent stages of production 80 000 brushes (with 2.0 millions/month production)
(with 1.6 millions/month production)

. Measure the WIP periodically and reduce it gradu- per year. Labour productivity in the earlier
ally. system ˆ 1 600 000 £ 12 £ 9:1=79 ˆ Rs2 210 000 per
. Every employee must be encouraged to look for worker per year (sales revenue based on average
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continuous improvement. MRP). Labour productivity in the new

system ˆ 2 000 000 £ 12 £ 9:1 =74 ˆ Rs 295 000 per
worker per year. The increase in labour
10. Cost–beneŽ t analysis productivity= 33.5%.

In general, the implementation of CFM system results Some intangible bene® ts are as follows.
in the following.
. All SKUs run in parallel, hence WIP inventory and
. Reduction in lead time of production. lead time of production is less.
. Reduction in WIP and increase in space utilization. . Production control is easier.
. Streamlined product ¯ ows and reduction in . Streamlined product ¯ ows simplify the operating
materials handling costs. environment making it easier for everyone to visua-
. Increase in throughput. lize product material ¯ ows from raw materials to
. Decrease in mismatch between demand and supply. ® nished products, hence any problem becomes im-
. Reduction in cost of quality. mediately noticeable.
. Increase in workers’ participation. . Provision is kept for expansion.
. Reduction in manufacturing costs. . CFM makes it easier to develop small work teams
continuously focused on speci® c product/process
Some of these are tangible and some are not. The improvements.
details of tangible bene® ts achieved are as follows. . It is the step towards the JIT system throughout the
supply chain
. Materials handling. Materials handling is less and
systematic [see ® gures 2( a) , (b) and 5]. The product
¯ ows from entry of raw materials to ® nished prod- 11. Conclusions
uct were 154 ft and 159 ft for carton-packed and
blister-packed brushes, respectively. Corresponding Continuous ¯ ow manufacturing, the one attribute of
movements in the new system are 50 ft and 63 ft, the JIT operating system, tries to eliminate areas of `non-
respectively. compliance’ through `total quality control’ , and mitigate
. Increase in production. The new system is capable the e€ ects of `uncertainty’ and `process complexity’
of producing 2.0 million brushes per month com- through `elimination of waste’.
pared to 1.6 million per month. Hence a 25% The e€ ects of CFM implementation are to be meas-
increase in production. ured carefully and regularly. The improvement is contin-
. Approximate bene® ts in terms of money value are uous, and the most commonly used measurements are:
Rs 4.3 million (Indian currency) per year (pro® t
before tax). . customer services (per cent of order on-time and
. Lead time and WIP reduction (see table 2) . complete) ;
. Labour productivity. Reduction in total direct . supply chain inventory ;
labours from 79 to 74 due to reduction in materials . plant cycle time;
handling and elimination of some non-value added . scrap and rework (Hase 1997).
activities. Taking the approximate cost to the man-
ufacturer as Rs 10 000 per worker per month, the Moving from push system to CFM system enabled the
total saving ˆ …79 ¡ 74† £ 10 000 £ 12 ˆ Rs600000 manufacturer to achieve the following bene® ts.
 Implementation of CFM system 519

. Reduction in materials ¯ ow by ¹65%. References

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. Reduction in rejection to almost `zero’. ¯ ow manufacturing. International J ournal of Production
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. Through CFM the internal customer/supplier rela- BOW E RS J R , G. H., 1991, Continuous ¯ ow manufacturing. In
Proceedings of SPIEÐ T he International Society f or Optical
tionships are strengthened . Engineering , 1496, 239 ± 246.
DIB ONO, P., 1997, Flow manufacturing improves e ciency and
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customer responsiveness. IIE Solutions, March, 25± 29.

Using CFM, companies can reap the rewards of mov-
F UNK, J . L., 1989, A comparison of inventory cost reduction
ing from outdated `just-in-case’ manufacturing to the strategies in a JIT manufacturing system. International
e ciencies and bene® ts of `JIT’ manufacturing. To opti- J ournal of Production Research, 27, 1065± 1080.
mize responsiveness to customer requirements and to H A SE , R., 1997, Taking another look at continuous ¯ ow manu-
obtain the full bene® ts of CFM, it has to be implemented facturing. IIE Solutions, J uly, 30± 33.
M ORA N, J . W., 1993, Please, no MRP! we’re continuous ¯ ow
in other links of the supply chain
manufacturer! In 36th Annual International Conf erence
Proceedings, A PPICS, pp. 463 ± 465.