Operations Management

Improving Operations Performance with World Class Manufacturing Technique: A Case in Automotive Industry

Global competition has caused fundamental changes in the competitive environment of manufacturing industries. Firms must develop strategic objectives which, upon achievement, result in a competitive advantage in the market place. However, for almost all manufacturing industries, an increased productivity and better overall efficiency of the production line are the most important goals. Most industries would like to find the formula for the ultimate productivity improvement strategy. Industries often suffer from the lack of a systematic and consistent methodology. In particular the manufacturing world has faced many changes throughout the years and as a result, the manufacturing industry is constantly evolving in order to stay ahead of competition1. Innovation is a necessary process for the continuous changes in order to contribute to the economic growth in the manufacturing industry, especially to compete in the global market. In addition to innovation as a mode for continued growth and change, there are many other vehicles for growth in the manufacturing industry2,3. One in particular that has been gaining momentum is the idea of World Class Manufacturing (WCM) developed by Richard J. Schonberger (in the 80s) who collected several cases, experiences and testimonies of companies that had embarked on the path of continuous “Kaizen” improvement for excellence in production, trying to give a systematic conception to the various practices and methodologies examined. Some of the benefits of integrating WCM include increased competitiveness, development of new and improved technology and innovation, increased flexibility, increased communication between management and production employees, and an increase in work quality and workforce empowerment. This work takes you to the journey of World Class Manufacturing System (WCMS) adopted by the most important automotive Company located in Italy, the Fiat Group Automobiles. World class can be defined as a tool used to search and allow a company to perform at a best-on-class level.

The aim of this work is to present establishments of the basic model of World Class Manufacturing (WCM) quality management for the production system in the automotive industry in order to make products of the highest quality eliminating losses in all the factory fields an improvement of work standards. The chapter is organized as follows: Section 2 introduces World Class Manufacturing and illustrates literature review, mission and principles of WCM, Section 3 describes Tools for WCM with particular attention on their features and on Key Performance and Key Activities Indicators and Section 4 describes the research methodology through a real case study in the largest Italian automotive company. To conclude, results and conclusions are provided.