Next time offered: September 15, 2020
Learn to Use QRM’s Precise Metric for Lead Time Measurement
Lead time reduction efforts based on the principles of Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM) can help your organization reduce inventories, improve delivery performance, reduce costs and improve cash flow. However, to reduce lead times and find areas for improvement you need to get a picture of the current state. Manufacturing Critical-path Time (MCT), a precise QRM metric for lead time, provides a unifying theme driving improvements in both your internal operations and within your supply chain.
In partnership with industry, the QRM Center has developed Manufacturing Critical-path Time (MCT), a precise QRM metric for lead time designed to capture how order processing, manufacturing, raw material procurement and shipping are linked while fulfilling customer orders. The metric allows you to discover new improvement opportunities by highlighting systemwide waste such as stockpiling finished goods and partially completed components.
This workshop will explain the MCT metric and feature hands-on group exercises to demonstrate how this metric can be used to identify and prioritize opportunities for improvement in internal operations as well as across the supply chain. You will learn how companies have improved on-time deliveries, reduced inventories and costs by mapping their MCT and focusing their efforts on MCT reduction..
After finishing this course, you will be able to:
- Understand the difference between MCT and other lead time metrics
- Measure and establish the MCT metric in your organization
- Develop MCT maps to visualize MCT and drive improvements in your company
- Use QRM software tools to develop MCT maps
Overview of Quick Response Manufacturing
- The many hidden costs of long lead times and the power of short lead times
- Core concepts of QRM
- The role of the MCT metric
Manufacturing Critical-path Time – Rationale and Explanation
- Why MCT?
- Detailed look at the MCT definition
Application in Industry
- How to use MCT as a continuous improvement tool
- MCT as a an order fulfillment planning strategy
Examples of MCT Calculation
- Step-by-step walkthrough of a typical MCT calculation (group exercise)
- MCT maps versus Value Stream maps
QRM Center MCT Tool Tutorial
- How to create an MCT map with the free QRM Center Excel-based tool
Business Impact of MCT Reduction
- What lower MCT means for your financal results
- MCT reduction and strategic initiatives
- Impact on traditional metrics
- What’s possible?
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) with MCT
- How MCT complements the VSM approach and sharpens a VSM analysis
Group Workshop: MCT in your Organization
Rajan Suri, Founding Director
Rajan Suri served as Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1985-2008. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cambridge University (England) and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Suri founded the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing in 1993, envisioning a consortium of companies that would work in partnership with the university and with each other to understand and implement lead time reduction strategies.
He is internationally regarded as an expert on the analysis of manufacturing systems, and he wrote the book Quick Response Manufacturing: A Companywide Approach to Reducing Lead Times (Productivity Press). Suri has consulted for leading firms including Alcoa, Danfoss, IBM, John Deere, National Oilwell Varco, Pratt & Whitney, Rockwell Automation and Trek Bicycle. Consulting assignments in Europe and the Far East, along with projects for the World Bank, have given him an international perspective on manufacturing competitiveness.
Suri has received awards from the American Automatic Control Council, The Institute of Management Sciences and the IEEE. In 1999, Suri was made a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and in 2006 he received SMEs Albert M. Sargent Progress Award for the creation and implementation of the Quick Response Manufacturing philosophy.
- For a more detailed overview of Prof. Suri’s research, please visit his website at the College of Engineering.
Nathan Stoflet, Manager, John Deere Harvester Works
Nathan Stoflet is the Global Commodity Manager of Metal Fabrication at John Deer Harvester Works in East Moline, Illinois. His areas of expertise include operations management, supply chain management, Lean and Quick Response Manufacturing. He is a frequent contributor to the QRM Center’s instruction of the Manufacturing Critical-path Time metric.
Nathan started at John Deere as a supplier development engineer in 2003 and in 2006 was appointed supervisor, responsible for aligning and improving supplier order-fulfillment capabilities and providing increased flexibility and responsiveness, improved utilization of assets and lower overall costs. Prior to joining Deere, he was a continuous improvement engineer at Pella Corporation.
Nathan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and an M.S. in Manufacturing Systems Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Participants say about this workshop:
Everyone in management should take this workshop. A great one-day workshop.
Mark Gaudreau
Manufacturing Engineer | Saris Cycling Group
Madison, Wis.
Very useful content and applicable to my company’s lean journey.
Antonio Rodriguez
Senior Manager | Covance Laboratories
Madison, Wis.
Very interesting. I believe that I was given the tools to make positive changes [in my company].
William Sherrod
Business Unit Lead
Manufacturing Critical-path Time (MCT) Workshop – Upcoming Events
No Posted Events
(Click on event title for detailed workshop information and online registration.)
Workshop Fee
$425 (QRM Center members may send up to five people for $275 each.)
Fee covers workbook and continental breakfasts and lunch.
Contact Person
Chris Wood
Event Coordinator
608-262-4709
christopher.wood@wisc.edu