VITA Analysis

In your complex manufacturing environment, if you are experiencing shortages of the right parts but still hold excess inventory, VITA Analysis is for you. Better understanding your company’s flow, and explaining the complexity and variability of your operations to all managers and executives in your company is the key to implementing the right processes and achieving the on-time and shipment performance your company needs.

The V-Plant flow starts with a central operation that then diverges to produce many diverse finished goods. Those end items, although different shapes and sizes, go through a similar refinement process before shipping. Typically, V-Plants invest in expensive machinery at the flow control point. It is important to support the beginning operation and manage lot sizes to maximize manufacturing capabilities and prevent material misallocations.

Symptoms You May Experience:

• High WIP and Finished Goods Inventory
• Interdepartmental conflicts about “supplier” gateway operation
• Push to large batch sizes

The I-Plant flow is a straightforward, singular production line consisting of converting a raw material or assembling component parts into a finished good. There are similar numbers of raw materials, sub assemblies, and finished goods along the assembly line. Oftentimes, this flow is used for food, beverage, printing, and value-added distributing operations. While this flow is one of the simplest environments to manage, it is prone to bottlenecks.

Symptoms You May Experience:

• High variability in demand = imbalanced load and low efficiencies
• Poor resource utilization
• Wandering bottlenecks
• Constant struggle to balance capacity with the load

The T-Plant flow begins with many I-Plant flows feeding manufactured components into component storage areas. These parts could be very simple, but when combined into different configurations during the assembly phase, they constitute a large number of unique finished products. T-Plants are one of the most complex to manage and synchronize due to dissimilar product routings and the necessity for multi-purpose machines and tools. It is important to determine the constraint based on overall load and variability.

Symptoms You May Experience:

• High WIP and Finished Goods Inventory
• Production not responsive
• Emphasis on efficiencies
• Very complex to synchronize

The A-Plant flow starts with many raw materials and purchased parts that are assembled at different sub-assembly points and constitute a single end product. These raw materials are specific to the end item, but in terms of quantity, the parts outnumber the final product. Many times, A-Plants require multi-purpose machines and tools for conversion and assembly. With dissimilar production routings and assembly points, the A-Plant can be a difficult environment to manage. It is important to monitor material shortages and bottlenecks.

Symptoms You May Experience:

• Assembly experiences chronic shortages (“golden screw”)
• Excessive, unplanned over-time and WIP
• Unsatisfactory resource utilization
• Wandering bottlenecks
• At times, operation seems ‘out of control’