The Product Wheel Handbook: Creating Balanced Flow in High-Mix Process Operations

BOCA RATON, Fla. - April 8, 2013 - PRLog -- The Product Wheel (PW) design process has practical methods for finding the optimum sequence, minimizing changeover costs, and freeing up useful capacity. So much so, that the DuPont™ Company and Exxon Mobil are just a few companies that have used the product wheel concept to achieve and sustain a competitive advantage.

Breaking down a fairly complex design process into manageable steps, The Product Wheel Handbook: Creating Balanced Flow in High-Mix Process Operations walks readers through the process for designing and implementing the PW technique. It includes a case study taken from actual practice that illustrates the design process and its benefits. Describing how to apply the product wheel technique to any manufacturing operation, the book:

Details the steps required to implement product wheels
Explains why certain traditional manufacturing metrics should be reevaluated so they don’t inhibit product wheel performance
Defines the cultural foundation necessary for smooth product wheel design and implementation
Includes a real-world case study and several examples of product wheels being used by successful manufacturing companies—including BG Products, Inc., the DuPont™ Company, the Dow Chemical Company, and Appleton

Many of the steps in wheel design described in this book are not new. What’s new is their application to production planning and scheduling problems, and more importantly, a clear roadmap explaining how and when they should be used in product wheel design.

Supplying you with the tools to reduce the chaos often found in production scheduling, the book outlines a disciplined structure that will allow you to spend less of your time resolving schedule problems. Most importantly, it provides your organization with a stable platform to deal with abnormal events in a less stressful and more logical manner.

Praise

"Peter King continues to be a thought leader in the spread of advanced manufacturing practices throughout the process industries. His product wheel concepts and practices are an excellent resource for plants with multiple products sharing the operating assets."

—Ray Floyd, Shingo Prize-winning author of Liquid Lean and member of IndustryWeek's Manufacturing Hall of Fame

"The authors have a gift for writing well, in a way that will keep the reader connected throughout this excellent work. It flows through the methodology in a well structured and logical way and could only be written by someone who has lived through product wheel implementation many times ... definitely a must-read for any Lean practitioner."

—Henrique Fagundes, Senior Project Manager, DuPont

"The product wheel is a true landmark in the management and organization of the workplace. All manufacturing operations searching for a way to organize and level the factory should have this book."

—Cash Powell, Jr., Editorial Board, Target Magazine; Association for Manufacturing Excellence; Lead Consultant, Center for Competitive Change, University of Dayton

"A clearly written guide to designing and improving product wheels ... . Pete and Jennifer King take you through a logical step-by-step process without ever resorting to simplistic recipes. This book will be valuable to businesses where both pull and push systems apply. Highly recommended!"

—Peter C. Compo, Director of Integrated Business Management, DuPont

About the Authors

Jennifer S. King is an operations research analyst with a government contractor, analyzing operational impacts of emerging Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) technologies and developing cost and performance models to support airline investment decisions. Prior to that, she spent 5 years with the Department of Defense developing discrete event simulation models to assist the army in setting reliability requirements for new platforms, and analyzing performance of weapon systems alternatives. Her prior publishing experience includes editing textbooks and developing mathematics problems and solutions for ExploreLearning.

Peter L. King is the president of Lean Dynamics, LLC, a manufacturing improvement consulting firm located in Newark, Delaware. Prior to founding Lean Dynamics, Pete spent 42 years with the DuPont™ Company in a variety of control systems, manufacturing systems engineering, continuous flow manufacturing, and Lean manufacturing assignments. That included 18 years applying Lean manufacturing techniques to a wide variety of products, including sheet goods such as DuPont Tyvek®, Sontara®, and Mylar®; fibers such as nylon, Dacron®, Lycra®, and Kevlar®; automotive paints; performance lubricants; bulk chemicals; adhesives; electronic circuit board substrates; and biological materials used in human surgery. On behalf of DuPont, he consulted with key customers in the processed food and carpet industries. He retired from DuPont in 2007, leaving a position as principal consultant in the Lean Center of Competency. Recent clients have included producers of sheet goods, lubricants and fuel additives, and polyethylene and polypropylene pellets.

For More Information Please Visit:

http://www.crcpress.com/product/isbn/9781466554184

ISBN 9781466554184, April 2013, 219pp