Process Discipline: How to Maximize Profitability and Quality Through Manufacturing Consistency

Process Discipline examines in detail all key process discipline components and shows you how to achieve near-perfect consistency of product through a rigorous, uncompromised focus on process knowledge, standardization, and control of change. From deploying "empowerment" in a control environment to handling the management issues of implementation, Edelson and Bennett provide the guidelines you need to create a successful process discipline system. A case study illustrates the concepts, rationale, and implementing guidelines for process discipline approach to process control.

Contents

Preface
CHAPTER 1: The Goal of Near-Perfect Consistency
CHAPTER 2: Process Discipline Fundamentals: Overview and Documentation
CHAPTER 3: Process Discipline Fundamentals: Training Systems Orientation
CHAPTER 4: Process Discipline Fundamentals: Audits
CHAPTER 5: Process Discipline Fundamentals: Control of Change
CHAPTER 6: Process Discipine Fundamentals: Experimenting on the Manufacturing Process
CHAPTER 7: The Role of Computers and Information Technology
CHAPTER 8: Management Issues
CHAPTER 9: Associated Technology Systems
CHAPTER 10: Cultural Issues
CHAPTER 11: Successful Implementation
GLOSSARY
INDEX

Norm Edelson retired from Corning, Inc. after 39 years in technical management positions including vice president of Corning Data Systems, corporate manager of process engineering, division manager of process and product development, chief engineer of two factories, and manager of several domestic and international turnaround projects. He developed and introduced the process management and control system used at Corning, a winner of the Baldrige Award. Edelson conceived and led the development of the Manufacturing Improvement Workshop, a simulation to train manufacturing personnel in these systems. He continues to consult with manufacturing facilities, and to teach graduate students at Cornell University and the Helsinki (Finland) University of Technology.

Carole L. Bennett is manager of engineering services at Varian X-Ray Tube Products in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her 20-year career at Corning included eight years as corporate manager of process management, and a stint as manufacturing manager of precision molded optics. She has worked seven-day rotating shifts as a factory supervisor, trained hundreds of people in the fundamentals of process discipline, and assisted more than 40 domestic and international factories in improving their manufacturing management systems.