Pearl Chain Design for Synchronous Production

For introducing successfully lean production or management systems into the automotive industry there are several benchmarks annually that show a variety of project realizations and evolve their critical aspects depending on actual local and global influences in different environments. However, not all previous lean projects have reduced waste, and thereby decrease costs as it was assumed. Apparently, this effect is moderated by several factors, even to the point of instability, complexity, and buffering in dynamic supply chain processes. For supporting robust and stable processes the authors will introduce the new pearl chain design approach and will give a brief overview about. The Pearl Chain Manufacturing Organization (PCMO) is a concept for control and measurement the stability of lean activities. To introduce this concept a procedure model is presented to cover the steps of design, analysis, optimization, redesign, measurement, control, and visualization resp. simulation and guides from the initial to the future state of the plant and its supply network. The paper closes with a brief consideration of its core elements: The integrated measurement and control environment for PCMO. For making supply chains more flexible, adaptive, and agile, the pearl chain design for synchronous production assures the benefits of adapted lean implementations.