• Lean (Manufacturing), the step by step elimination of waste. Waste in this sense is defined as any activity that adds cost but not value to the end product; and can include excess production, stock, work in progress, unnecessary handling and scrap.
• Total Quality, a culture of intolerance to defects both in the processes and also information such as bills of material and stock records. Total quality is often also called Six Sigma which uses total quality and Lean Manufacturing techniques to attempt to reduce rejects to 3.4 per million parts produced.
• Total Preventative Maintenance, a concept of proactive maintenance aimed at achieving overall effectiveness in the manufacturing system by involving all of the people in the manufacturing organization in maintenance activities. Under the TPM concept, machines and equipment are maintained so often and so thoroughly that they hardly ever break down, jam, or misperform during a production run. Where possible and practical routine maintenance is carried out by operators rather than maintenance.

• Improve material flows on the production floor. Organise equipment and operations into manufacturing cells or flows consisting of only the machines and equipment required for the production of a certain set of parts or products. Layout changes can substantially reduce transportation, materials handling and production lead-times within the plant.
• Improve flexibility to meet changing market demand through setup reduction. Reducing setup times leads to a reduction in lot sizes, inventory levels, and production lead-times so that the factory operation will become flexible enough to respond to changing market demand.
• Upgrade machine capability through low-cost autonomation and automation. The challenge is to creatively develop inexpensive and simple ideas to improve an existing machine's capability rather than to buy expensive state-of-the-art equipment off the shelf. Two concepts developed in Japan are very helpful in guiding machine capability efforts: Jidoka (autonomation) and Poka-Yoke (fail-safe mechanisms). The autonomation concept suggests that we can upgrade the machine's capabilities by giving it human-like intelligence features to detect abnormal conditions and stop its operation automatically when such abnormal conditions arise. This will enable a single machine operator to handle multiple machines at the same time and greatly improve productivity. The fail-safe concept suggests that the machine's capabilities can be upgraded with devices or mechanisms that prevent machine operators from making mistakes and creating defects. The major difference between the two concepts is that the autonomation concept focuses on detecting abnormal conditions that may result in producing defects, and the fail-safe concept focuses on preventing defects at the source.
• Upgrade employee skills through job rotation and cross-functional training, so that each employee can handle more than one type of operation (e.g., pressing, welding, shearing, assembling, and inspecting). With multi-functional skilled workers, the manufacturing system can easily be fine-tuned to handle variations in demand. This is done by increasing or decreasing the number of operators on a given line as demand fluctuates.
• Improve communication throughout the plant using visual methods. Many factories use trouble light boards hung from the ceiling just above the production lines. These light boards are used to signal to operators when abnormal conditions occur so that appropriate corrective action can be taken immediately. Production control boards are another visual control tool. They are used to visually convey actual production activities as contrasted with the production schedule. Its purpose is to measure conformance to the plan and to make discrepancies between actual and planned production visible to everyone. The production control board helps supervisors and operators pinpoint problems occurring on the production line so that corrective action can be taken to remedy the problems in a timely manner.
• Improve process reliability through performance measurement and statistical process control (SPC). An ability to control process variability is essential to achieve a higher level of conformance quality. Process control charts are used to monitor various characteristics of the process to detect abnormal variations. Cause-and-effect diagrams can help a work group categorically and systematically explore the major possible sources of process variations. Given information about sources of variation and the occurrence of distinct events, Pareto diagrams rank them by size and provide some indication of their relative importance. Histograms provide an indication of the frequency of variable values over time. It is critical that a company seeking to improve process reliability must train people to understand the performance measures and SPC techniques and be able to use the presented information to distinguish between normal and abnormal variations in the production process. Once this is accomplished, workers may pursue increasing levels of control over the process through corrective action and continuous improvement
• Eliminate machine problems. A fundamental principle in preventing machine breakdown is total preventive maintenance (TPM). All production staff should be trained to help achieve zero production failures as follows:
  • They should learn how to carry out routine housekeeping, oiling, bolt tightening, etc., to prevent forced deterioration of machines;
  • they should receive instruction in the correct machine operating procedures;
  • They should develop an enhanced awareness of signs of early machine deterioration by performing easy maintenance, daily checks, setups, and so on.
  The role of maintenance people, on the other hand, is to:
  • Assist the production staff with self-maintenance activities,
  • Restore deteriorating equipment through regular inspection, disassembly, and readjustment,
  • Determine weaknesses in machine design, take corrective action, and specify operating conditions.

Conclusion

A manufacturing firm achieves world-class status when it has successfully developed manufacturing capabilities to support the entire company in gaining a sustained competitive advantage over its competitors in such areas as cost, quality, delivery, flexibility, and innovation.

World-class manufacturers seek to outperform their global competitors in targeted areas; they are not content simply to copy their competition. They want to develop their own work force, equipment, and systems, but they also respect the capabilities of others. Therefore, they continually scrutinize the outside world, particularly their top competitors, to ensure that they are aware of the newest innovations, technology and best practices. The most recognizable characteristic of world-class manufacturers is their ability to adapt quickly to changing customer and market requirements and to get their new products designed, produced, and delivered to the customers better and faster than their competitors.

World Class manufacturers recognise that improvements are essential to survival and profitability. They achieve standards of quality, productivity and flexibility through innovation and best practices and are considered benchmarks in their industry sector. They and consistently outperform the competition in delivering value to their customers and maintain their competitive advantage by continuously measuring, benchmarking and improving their performance all of which means World Class manufacturers tends to grow faster and be more profitable than their competitors.