Managing Automation - January 2009 - (Page 19) DEEPDIVE agility Have you noticed that business conditions seem to be changing faster than ever? It’s not your imagination. Manufacturers now must not only survive change, but also embrace it with agility. BY JEFF MOAD alk about a one-two punch. Just last summer, as soaring gasoline prices forced consumers to rethink their preference for large, fuelhungr y vehicles, Honda Motor Co., like most of its automotive OEM competitors, saw demand for SUVs and pickup trucks dry up. Then, last fall, the credit crisis and souring economy conspired to undercut consumer spending further. Suddenly, Honda and other car makers found they were spending a lot of money making product for which there was little demand. “In the current market, the changes have all come so fast,” says Honda spokesman Ron Lietzke. “We had to be agile enough to quickly shift product levels based on what people want to buy.” Fortunately for Honda, the company, over the past decade, has been laying the groundwork for reacting with agility. Honda, as part of what it calls a New Manufacturing System, designed its Nor th American plants in places like Marysville, OH, and Lincoln, AL, to use common processes and equipment. The company replaced inflexible hydraulic welding systems with programmable robotic welding systems that can be easily used to produce a wide variety of cars and light tr ucks. And Honda crosstrained plant workers and deployed visual management systems, allowing workers to quickly shift from building one design to another. 19 January 2009 Photo: Ricardo Azoury
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