Enterprise modelling in support of methods based engineering: lean implementation in an SME

Popular ‘methods-based’ approaches to engineering enterprises include: BPR, Continuous Improvement, Kaizen, TQM, JIT, Lean and Agile Manufacturing. Generally the industrial application of such methods-based approaches leads to long lead-times, high costs, and poorly justified engineering projects that do not prepare the organization for future change. These outcomes are to be expected because (1) invariably Manufacturing Enterprises (MEs) constitute very complex and dynamic systems that naturally require complex design and change processes and (2) current methods-based approaches to organizational design and change are not analytically well founded. Therefore the authors argue that a framework and modelling toolset are required to facilitate ongoing and integrated application of methods-based engineering approaches, providing underlying modelling structures and concepts to ‘systemize’ and ‘quantify’ key aspects of organization design and change. Unless suitable decomposition, quantitative and qualitative modelling principles are used to underpin an approach such as a Lean Manufacturing, deficiencies will remain. Often, MEs adopt the “we need be lean” mindset without holistic understandings of causal and temporal impacts of such philosophies on ME processes, resource systems and current and possible future workflows. Enterprise Modelling (EM) partially addresses the aforementioned problems and can support the development of robust understandings about current enterprise processes and potential capabilities of systems. However in general, current EM techniques are geared best to capturing and organizing relatively enduring knowledge and data about any given organization but are themselves deficient in respect to replicating and predicting dynamic system behaviors. This paper presents a model driven approach to organization design and change in support of methods-based engineering, applying Lean Manufacturing principles, with a UK based bearing manufacturer. EM and various derivative Simulation Modelling (SM) views were generated to display system behaviors under changing scenarios.