Printed Circuits Components for a Jit Factory

Printed circuits components for a JIT factory

Mr. Carl Burger, supply manager at Acacia Company, is faced with a problem of researching several electronic components for a new graphic plotter, manufactured in a just-in-time environment.

Acacia Company is a major producer of graphic plotters, renowned for top-quality and innovative products. The newest unit in the product line is the 440A, a relatively inexpensive eight-pen, A-size plotter, designed for use with personal computers.

Thoughtful design of the component parts, along with a dedicated value engineering effort, resulted in substantially fewer component parts required for assembly. Extensive market research indicated that the plotter was priced lower than most of its competition and provided more features, such as greater accuracy at higher speed. The marketing forecast estimated annual volume to exceed 60000 units, far more than any other Acacia model. The combination of few component parts and very high volume made the 440A an excellent choice for implementing a JIT process.

Supply managers at Acacia were traditionally organized by commodity, such as raw materials and motors. In an effort to improve the supply process, supply managers with technical backgrounds (such as Carl Burger) are now assigned to new products during product development, and are responsible for buying all parts unique to their instrument. Although this means that a motor manufacturer might interact with several Acacia supply managers (one commodity supply manager and one or new product supply managers), Acacia is satisfied that any confusion or overlap is more than compensated by significant improvement in new product procurement.

Many of the 440A’s components are identical technically to components purchased by commodity supply managers for other Acacia plotters, but have separate part numbers to differentiate JIT packaging and delivery requirement and to identify higher costs when they occur.

The JIT facility at Acacia is divided into two main production areas, the printed circuit cell (PC cell) and the assembly line. The PC cell contains state-of-the-art robotics equipment requiring little human intervention. The equipment is designed to select the component parts while still packaged, load its feeder bins, and automatically insert the components into PC boards based on a computerized XY insertion program. There is also a JIT stockroom facility near the production areas, and a separate MRP system.

Parts purchased for the 440A must meet special JIT requirements. Suppliers are requested to use bar-coded labels to identity their shipments for optical wanding into inventory, and the automatic equipment requires specially designed packaging tubes and parts for taping for auto-insertion of PC components. Furthermore, the delivery of most JIT parts must be weekly (instead of usual monthly delivery), in order to maintain a minimum of inventory in the stockroom. Deliveries must be highly reliable to prevent stockouts and line shutdowns.

The parts that Carl is considering resourcing are four integrated circuits (ICs), seven diodes, and three transistors. These parts are all low-cost, industry-standard parts, with the exception of five of the diodes, which are manufactured by only one company, Monitor Inc. Monitor is the industry leader in diodes and transistors and suppliers Acacia with quality parts at competitive prices for other plotter.

While the 440A was still in the design phase, Carl and the electrical engineers began preliminary discussions with Monitor, which had never supplied parts to JIT customers. Monitor indicated that it was willing to meet the JIT requirements in order to get the 440A business and the promised follow-on JIT new product business. Monitor was selected as the single-source suppliers for the fourteen PC components.

Acacia provided the necessary technical specifications, and over a period of many months Monitor struggled to satisfactorily meet the packaging and labeling specifications. Any label or package changes made by Acacia required extensive paperwork, conferences, and cross-country trips to Monitor’s facility. In an effort to help Monitor understand the JIT concept and why special treatment of parts was needed, Monitor engineers toured the Acacia facility and attended JIT presentation.

In July, the 440A entered production. In addition to the usual last-minute design changes one expects with a new product, the production team had to cope with new machinery, new employees, a new inventory method, and new computer systems. As the production process became more organized, Carl was pleased to see that nearly all his suppliers were complying with the JIT requirements. A critical exception to this was Monitor.

Monitor-supplied components were often marked with the wrong bar-code label, which resulted in repeated inventory problems. Packaging tubes were outside specifications and could not be handled by the automatic equipment. The components themselves sometimes had bent leads, preventing their insertion in PC boards. Also, the deliveries were often behind schedule, although conferences with Monitor representatives, Carl began to realize that Monitor’s focus on high-volume production made it ill equipped to handle relatively small, special-order items. Monitor maintain that it was getting better at the JIT orders, but Carl was frustrated with the apparent lack of progress and began to examine his alternatives.

Five of the diodes could not be resourced, as Monitor was the sole manufacturer. United Semiconductors, a large U.S firm, was willing to meet the JIT requirements for the four ICs, although JIT would be new to it. After talking with united management and engineers, Carl felt that the company showed greater administrative flexibility, which was Monitor’s current price. Acacia already purchase non-JIT parts from United and had experienced no problems.

The three transistors and two remaining diodes could be obtained from Taguchi Company, a Japanese-based firm. Taguchi mentioned that it was already supplying components to Japanese firms using JIT processes and noted that its engineers were familiar with the robotics used at Acacia. Taguchi’s price was about 10 percent higher that Monitor’s. Taguchi was successfully supplying non-JIT parts to Acacia. Both United and Taguchi indicated they could be ready for delivery in approximately one month.

Carl sat at his desk trying to weigh the benefits and disadvantages of switching suppliers now. He was worried about damaging relations with Monitor and the impact on the commodity supply manager’s purchases from Monitor. He was also concerned about what finance would say about a significant price increase for several components. Just then Stan Ervin, PC cell supervisor, stormed in.

“Bent leads on your ICs shut my equipment down again! What do you intend to do about it?”

Questions

1. Compare the advantages and disadvantages of staying with Monitor versus switching to the new suppliers.
2. What should Carl do now?

卡爾·伯格先生，在相思公司供應經理，正面臨著一個新的繪圖儀，在一個剛剛在時間的環境下生產研發一些電子元件的問題。

相思公司是圖形繪圖儀的主要生產商，著名的頂級品質和創新的產品。在產品線的最新的單位是440A，相對廉價的八筆，A尺寸繪圖儀，設計用於與個人計算機中使用。

周到的設計的構成部件，以及一個專用值的工程工作，導致了組裝所需基本上較少的組成部分。廣泛的市場調查表明，繪圖儀是比大多數其競爭的定價下部和提供更多的功能，如更高的精確度更高的速度。營銷預測預計全年成交量將超過60000台，遠遠超過了其他任何相思的模式。的幾個組成部分非常高容量的結合，並提出了440A的絕佳選擇實施JIT的過程。

供應管理人員在相思受商品傳統上組織，如原材料和電機。在努力提高供應過程中，有技術背景的電源管理器（如卡爾·伯格）現在在產品開發過程分配到新的產品，並負責購買所有部件獨特的樂器。雖然這意味著電機製造商可能與一些相思電源管理器（一種商品供給管理器和一個或新產品供應經理）進行交互，相思納任何混亂或重疊多於在新產品採購顯著改善補償。

許多440A的部件是相同的技術被用於其他相思繪圖商品供應經理購買的零部件，但有獨立的部件號來區分JIT包裝和交付要求以及何時發生，以確定更高的成本。

在金合歡了JIT設施被分成兩個主要生產區，在印刷電路細胞（PC細胞）和裝配線。該PC單元包含一個國家的最先進的機器人設備幾乎不需要人為干預。該設備的設計，選擇零部件，同時還打包，裝入及其聯接箱，並自動插入基於計算機化XY插入程序組件到PC板。也有附近的生產領域JIT庫房設施，和一個單獨的MRP系統。

購買的440A零部件必須滿足特殊JIT要求。供應商被要求使用條碼標籤來標識自己的出貨量光學畹町到庫存，以及自動設備需要專門設計的包裝管和零件編帶自動插入PC組件。此外，大部分的JIT份交付必須每週（而不是通常的每月​​遞），以維持在庫房最小庫存。交付必須高度可靠，防止脫銷和線停機。

卡爾正在考慮的資源配置的部分是4的集成電路（IC），七二極管，和三個晶體管。這些部件都是低成本的，工業標準件，除五二極管，它僅由一家公司生產的，監控公司監控器是業界領先的二極管和晶體管和供應商相思高質量的零部件有競爭力價格等繪圖儀。
雖然440A仍處於設計階段，卡爾和電氣工程師開始監測初步討論，它從來沒有提供的零件JIT客戶。監測表明，它願意滿足以獲得440A的業務和所承諾的後續JIT新產品業務的JIT要求。監視器被選為單一來源供應商十四PC組件。

阿拉伯膠提供了必要的技術規範，並在一段數月監視器努力令人滿意地滿足包裝和標籤的規格。任何相思製作標籤或包裝的改變需要大量的文書工作，會議和越野前往顯示器的工廠。在努力幫助監視器了解JIT理念和為什麼需要部分的特殊處理，監控工程師參觀了相思設施，並參加了JIT演示。

今年七月，440A投入生產。除了通常的最後一分鐘的設計改變人們期待一個新產品，生產隊不得不應對新機器，新員工，新清單的方法，以及新的計算機系統。由於生產過程變得更有組織，卡爾很高興地看到，幾乎所有的供應商都與JIT要求的規定。一個重要的例外是監視器。

顯示器提供的成分往往打上了錯誤的條形碼標籤，這就造成了重複的庫存問題。包裝管被外界的規格，並可能無法由自動設備來處理。該組件本身有時有彎曲的線索，防止其插入PC板。此外，分娩往往落後於計劃，但會議與顯示器的代表，卡爾開始意識到監控的重點放在高產量使得它足夠的資源來處理比較小的，特殊訂單項目。監控維護，這是越來越在JIT訂單較好，但卡爾很沮喪的明顯缺乏進展，並開始檢查他的替代品。

五二極管不能資源，作為監視器是唯一的製造商。美國半導體，美國的大公司，願意滿足四個集成電路的JIT要求，雖然JIT將是新的吧。與聯合國的管理和工程師交談後，卡爾認為，公司表現出更大的管理靈活性，這是顯示器的當前價格。相思已購買來自美國的非JIT零部件和經歷過任何問題。

這三個晶體管和兩個剩餘的二極管可能與田口公司，日本的一家公司獲得。田口提到，它是使用JIT進程已經提供組件日本公司，並指出它的工程師們熟悉的相思中使用的機器人。田口的價格明顯高於顯示器的10％左右。田口被成功地滿足非JIT部分相思。無論曼聯和田口表示，他們可能準備交付約一個月。

卡爾坐在他的辦公桌試圖權衡現在更換供應商的優勢和劣勢。他擔心損害與監視器關係和商品供應經理從監視器採購的影響。他還擔心什麼金融會說關於顯著提價幾部分組成。就在這時斯坦歐文，PC細胞監事，衝進研究。
“彎腳在你關機的IC我的裝備下來了！那你打算怎麼辦？“

問題
1.比較不離不棄，監控與切換到新的供應商的優勢和劣勢。
2.什麼應該卡爾現在怎麼辦？