Handling of Production Disturbances in the Manufacturing Industry
Journal article, 2016

Purpose – A common understanding of what events to regard as production disturbances (PD) are essential for effective handling of PDs. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to answer the two questions: how are individuals with production or maintenance management positions in industry classifying different PD factors? Which factors are being measured and registered as PDs in the companies monitoring systems? Design/methodology/approach – A longitudinal approach using a repeated cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Empirical data were collected from 80 companies in 2001 using a paper-based questionnaire, and from 71 companies in 2014 using a web-based questionnaire. Findings – A diverging view of 21 proposed PD factors is found between respondents in manufacturing industry, and there is also a lack of correspondence with existing literature. In particular, planned events are not classified and registered to the same extent as downtime losses. Moreover, the respondents are often prone to classify factors as PDs compared to what is actually registered. This diverging view has been consistent for over a decade, and hinders companies to develop systematic and effective strategies for handling of PDs. Originality/value – There has been no in-depth investigation, especially not from a longitudinal perspective, of the personal interpretation of PDs from people who play a central role in achieving high reliability of production systems.

Keywords Manufacturing

Overall equipment effectiveness

Maintenance

Production disturbances

Author

Jon Bokrantz

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Anders Skoogh

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Torbjörn Ylipää

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Johan Stahre

Chalmers, Product and Production Development, Production Systems

Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management

1741-038X (ISSN)

Vol. 27 8 1054-1075

Subject Categories

Production Engineering, Human Work Science and Ergonomics

Areas of Advance

Transport

DOI

10.1108/JMTM-02-2016-0023

More information

Created

10/8/2017