Good operations practice supervisor profiles in cell-centric manufacturing

Abstract

The selection and implementation of good operations practice cannot be undertaken in isolation; it must consider the enterprise context. The aim of this paper is to describe a robust process for the development of specific environment good operations practice role profiles for supervisors, and illustrate this through a case study within a complex cell-centric manufacturing environment. The approach identifies the activities undertaken by a cell leader and team leader in a given manufacturing organization, and also by a good operations practice cell leader and team leader in a relevant external organization. Then via a survey of operations managers and functional managers, those activities that a cell leader and team leader should do within the given manufacturing organization are identified. The approach enables the contextual adoption of good operations practice, develops supervisor role profiles which allows them to be proficient within their task domains, contributes to attaining agreement amongst operational and functional management, and has applications across cell-centric manufacturing. The potentially significant impacts available across cell-centric manufacturing are illustrated by the finding that following this examination of operations practice in the case study company two-thirds were classified as requiring change.

Keywords:

• Operations management
• Cell-centric manufacturing
• Good practice
• Activity profiles
• Supervisor role
• Operations interface