DRUCKER P., The Emerging Theory of Manufacturing, Harvard Business Review, 1990

Abstract

We cannot build it yet. But already we can specify the “postmodern” factory of 1999. Its essence will not be mechanical, though there will be plenty of machines. Its essence will be conceptual—the product of four principles and practices that together constitute a new approach to manufacturing.

Each of these concepts is being developed separately, by different people with different starting points and different agendas. Each concept has its own objectives and its own kinds of impact. Statistical Quality Control is changing the social organization of the factory. The new manufacturing accounting lets us make production decisions as business decisions. The “flotilla,” or module, organization of the manufacturing process promises to combine the advantages of standardization and flexibility. Finally, the systems approach embeds the physical process of making things, that is, manufacturing, in the economic process of business, that is, the business of creating value.

As these four concepts develop, they are transforming how we think about manufacturing and how we manage it. Most manufacturing people in the United States now know we need a new theory of manufacturing. We know that patching up old theories has not worked and that further patching will only push us further behind. Together these concepts give us the foundation for the new theory we so badly need.

The most widely publicized of these concepts, Statistical Quality Control (SQC), is actually not new at all. It rests on statistical theory formulated 70 years ago by Sir Ronald Fisher. Walter Shewhart, a Bell Laboratories physicist, designed the original version of SQC in the 1930s for the zero-defects mass production of complex telephone exchanges and telephone sets. During World War II, W. Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran, both former members of Shewhart’s circle, separately developed the versions used today.

The Japanese owe their leadership in manufacturing quality largely to their embrace of Deming’s precepts in the 1950s and 1960s. Juran too had great impact in Japan. But U.S. industry ignored their contributions for 40 years and is only now converting to SQC, with companies such as Ford, General Motors, and Xerox among the new disciples. Western Europe also has largely ignored the concept. More important, even SQC’s most successful practitioners do not thoroughly understand what it really does. Generally, it is considered a production tool. Actually, its greatest impact is on the factory’s social organization.

By now, everyone with an interest in manufacturing knows that SQC is a rigorous, scientific method of identifying the quality and productivity that can be expected from a given production process in its current form so that control of both attributes can be built into the process itself. In addition, SQC can instantly spot malfunctions and show where they occur—a worn tool, a dirty spray gun, an overheating furnace. And because it can do this with a small sample, malfunctions are reported almost immediately, allowing machine operators to correct problems in real time. Further, SQC quickly identifies the impact of any change on the performance of the entire process. (Indeed, in some applications developed by Deming’s Japanese disciples, computers can simulate the effects of a proposed change in advance.) Finally, SQC identifies where, and often how, the quality and productivity of the entire process can be continuously improved. This used to be called the “Shewhart Cycle” and then the “Deming Cycle”; now it is kaizen, the Japanese term for continuous improvement.

But these engineering characteristics explain only a fraction of SQC’s results. Above all, they do not explain the productivity gap between Japanese and U.S. factories. Even after adjusting for their far greater reliance on outside suppliers, Toyota, Honda, and Nissan turn out two or three times more cars per worker than comparable U.S. or European plants do. Building quality into the process accounts for no more than one-third of this difference. Japan’s major productivity gains are the result of social changes brought about by SQC. Leggi l’articolo completo