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by David R. Brousell, MA Editorial Staff   | Abstract: | Is it possible to achieve the "perfect plant" in which shop-floor-to-top-floor integration lives? It is, if an SAP-backed group has anything to say about it. |
Perfection can be elusive. The New England Patriots, arguably the best football team of the season just passed, learned a painful lesson on Feb. 3. Perfection can be just within your grasp, but then can slip away by a hair's breadth. You can build and build for months and then lose it all in a couple of minutes. And then you have to start all over again. There's no finish line when it comes to perfection. But that doesn't stop us from trying. In a way, establishing perfection as a goal is necessary to enable any person or group to achieve more — more than the usual, more than the expected, the edge that leads to the realization of a dream. And so it is, too, with manufacturing. We set the goal of achieving perfection in how we handle an order, process an invoice, create a customer experience, procure material, or fulfill a warranty. Achieving perfection in conducting an individual business process is hard enough, but now there are some who want to extend the goal to running an entire factory or plant. Is this a bridge too far? [Click to continue] |