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QRM in the News
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Quick Response Manufacturing at Phoenix Products
In its current issue Fabricator magazine published a detailed profile of Phoenix Products, a manufacturer of exterior lighting for the mining industry as well as marine, industrial and material-handling applications. The Milwaukee, Wis.-based company started QRM implementation in 2004 and has since achieved some impressive results, like reducing lead times for the light fixture on the left from eight to two weeks.
The extensive article highlights some of the familiar challenges for companies like Phoenix, that operate in a high-mix, low-volume environment: the benefits and limits of Lean, coming to terms with QRM's new ways of thinking about things like capacity utilization and batch sizes, and the significant benefits deriving from a focus on lead time.
Read the full-length article about Phoenix Products' QRM journey on the Fabricator magazine website. While you are there, you might also want to check out this overview of QRM and Rajan Suri's new book "It's About Time".
QRM at Phoenix Podcast
Tim Heston of Fabricator Magazine talks with Lynn M. Benishek, materials manager at Phoenix Products, about how QRM has changed Phoenix's shop culture, as well as its supplier relationships.
Challenging Traditional Beliefs - Rajan Suri featured in APICS magazine
Rajan Suri, founder of the QRM strategy, is featured in the September/October 2011 issue of APICS magazine (Association for Operations Management). The article highlights his important contributions to the field of operations management and his long-standing connection to APICS.
In fact, the enthusiastic reaction to one of his articles published in APICS magazine in 1995 had lasting consequences. "THE APICS community's response to my article convinced me that I should elaborate on my ideas," Rajan Suri said. "I spent the next three years putting pen to paper, and, in 1998, I publishd my first book on QRM, Quick Response Manufacturing: A companywide approach to reducing lead times."
If you are an APICS member, you can read the full article on the APICS magazine website.
Fast, Fluid and Flexible - Quick Response Manufacturing at Nicolet Plastics
In its Spring 2011 issue, Plastics Business magazine features QRM Center member company Nicolet Plastics and its journey in using QRM to deal with high complexity and reduce lead times.
Read the article and see how Nicolet Plastics used QRM to turn high complexity into a strategic advantage and what results they have seen so far.
Fast, Fluid and Flexible at Nicolet Plastics (Plastics Business, Spring 2011)
The Art Of Slashing Lead Times
In its April 2011 issue, IMPO magazine features QRM Center member company Pointe Precision and their journey in reducing lead times with QRM.
"People want product as soon as possible. We have more customers knocking on our door saying, 'Okay, you said two weeks, but can we get it in a week?'," says Sam Crueger, manufacturing engineering manager at Pointe Precision while describing a common challenge for many manufacturers today.
Read the article and see how Pointe Precision approached this challenge and how QRM helped this high-precision machine shop in cutting lead times throughout its operations.
The Art Of Slashing Lead Times (IMPO April 2011)
New "QRM Centrum" opens in Europe
Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) has found a new home across the Atlantic. Professor Ananth Krishnamurthy, director of the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Emeritus Professor Rajan Suri, founding director of the Center, have partnered with multiple universities in the Netherlands to establish a "Quick Response Manufacturing Centrum" in the Netherlands/Belgium region. The QRM Centrum is dedicated to the development and dissemination of QRM knowledge in both academia and industry in Europe.
"The Centrum is the first university-industry partnership devoted to QRM implementation outside of the United States," said Professor Ananth Krishnamurthy, director of the QRM Center at UW-Madison. "Issues of lead time reduction in the manufacturing of custom products are gaining worldwide importance. The new partnership in Europe should greatly facilitate the advancement of research and practice of the QRM."
Moving Beyond Lean: Quick Response Manufacturing
While lean's core techniques are designed to eliminate variability in operations it might not be the right strategy for low-volume, high-variety or customized products.
In this article in Industry Week, Prof. Rajan Suri explains how QRM can complement Lean in coping with unexpected changes in demand, offering a large number of options to customers and offering custom-engineered products for individual applications.
Read the full article in Industry Week here.
Rajan Suri inducted into the Industry Week 2010 Manufacturing Hall of Fame
Rajan Suri, former director of the QRM Center, is one of only 10 people to be inducted into the Industry Week 2010 Manufacturing Hall of Fame.
Suri was honored for the creation of the quick response manufacturing strategy and his long-standing efforts in helping U.S. manufacturers stay competitve in the global marketplace.
Others in the 2010 "Dream Team" include Michael Dell (Founder of Dell Computer), Donald Fites (Former CEO of Caterpillar) and Rich Teerlink (past Chairman/CEO of Harley-Davidson). Last year, the 2009 Hall of Fame included Steve Jobs (of Apple Computer), Lee Iacocca (former head of Chrysler) and Jack Welch (former head of GE and famous for Six Sigma efforts).
Read the full article on the Industry Week 2010 Manufacturing Hall of Fame here.
Quick Response Manufacturing: Taking The Pharmaceutical Industry Beyond Lean Six Sigma
Pharmaceutical and biotech industries are under enormous pressure to improve quality, increase efficiency, and cut costs of their preclinical research and clinical development processes. In an article in the October 2010 issue of the "Life Science Leader", Prof. Ananth Krishnamurthy (Director, QRM Center) and Gerald Finken (CEO, Clincial Supplies Management) show how the time-based approach of Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) might enable pharmaceutical industries to take the improvements obtained from Lean Six Sigma to the next level and improve preclinical research and clinical development processes.
Read the full article in the Life Science Leader here.
QRM center gives Wisconsin company a bright future
In the early 2000s, Milwaukee-based Phoenix Products was facing a host of challenges, including increasingly slow deliveries to customers, out-of-control inventory and high employee turnover. "We were constantly expediting projects," recalls Scott Fredrick, the company's chief executive officer. "Everything was an emergency, and we weren't getting anywhere." By 2004, the issues had reached a crescendo for the special-purpose-lighting equipment manufacturer. "We had been running overtime every Saturday for a year and a half," Fredrick says. "We had to do something."
An article in the Business Journal of Milwaukee by Rajan Suri, a UW-Madison professor emeritus of industrial and systems engineering, introduced Fredrick to what that something would be. Fredrick attended a seminar hosted by the UW-Madison Center for Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM), founded by Suri and currently directed by Ananth Krishnamurthy, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering. Read the full story on Phoenix Products experience with QRM here.