This week’s selection is “Smart Manufacturing: The Lean Six Sigma Way” by Anthony Tarantino.
Manufacturing is in the midst of change. That’s mostly due to the emergence of what’s being called “industry 4.0”, something others term as another Industrial Revolution. The driving force behind this change is technology, where sensors and computational capacity allow machines to integrate and become “smart”. On this new framework can be built highly sophisticated workflows that can make manufacturing far more efficient, reliable and consistent.
However, there’s another factor that’s been at work in manufacturing for several decades: Lean Manufacturing.
Lean is a methodology used in manufacturing to reduce timing in manufacturing workflows. Implementation of Lean usually results in faster production, lower costs and fewer errors. Originally developed by Toyota in the 1960s, it’s now commonly used in many manufacturing operations.
Now, however, we have the two meeting: what happens when you combine Industry 4.0 and Lean? Are they compatible? How do you adjust operations to meet both needs? That is what this book is all about.
The book begins by providing a level-set of information for both practices, including the Six Sigma DMAIC framework that is commonly used by most companies.
The remainder of the book proceeds through a variety of collision points between the two. One key aspect of Lean is “continuous improvement”, and they examine tools that can be used with smart manufacturing workflows, for example. They also look at supply chain resiliency with industry 4.0, cybersecurity, logistics, big data, IoT, AI, edge computing, additive manufacturing, robotics and other technological elements of industry 4.0.
This is quite an interesting scenario that many companies will find themselves deep into within the next few years. This book could provide some advice and guidance on how to handle the coming integrations.
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Via Amazon
