Production Processes

Material flows are different from information flows. It will always take time to move materials and assemble components into products. This time has already been dramatically reduced in many instances and in many cases it can be further reduced in the future, but clearly we cannot take away more than the time that remains in a process. In the case of the schematic example taken from Forrester above, the whole process took 19 weeks. When the whole process now takes only 2½ weeks it is obvious that material flows and information flows have been speeded up and that the improvement of a total of 16½ weeks cannot be repeated. The maximum improvement that is now possible is 2½ weeks, out of which a substantial part is now value-added time. Thus, the opportunity to improve the process further is smaller and it gradually becomes more difficult to decrease total cycle time because there is less time left. It might still be possible to reduce unproductive time and the amount of time needed in production and in the supply chain. This can be done by designing products in a smarter way so that they become easier and less expensive to produce, or by using fewer suppliers, who can be located close to the assembly plant. However, the value of these improvements will be less than those made when the process took 19 weeks.