[Ai Borui's viewpoint] Issues to be noted in the planning and construction of lean new factories

The "Made in China 2025" clearly states that the manufacturing industry is the mainstay of the national economy, the foundation of building a country, the tool for revitalizing the country, and the basis of a strong nation. Since the beginning of industrial civilization in the mid-18th century, the rise and fall of world powers and the struggle of the Chinese nation have repeatedly proven that without a strong manufacturing industry, there can be no national or ethnic strength. Building a manufacturing industry with international competitiveness is the only way for China to enhance its comprehensive national strength, ensure national security, and build a world power.

How Chinese enterprises can achieve high levels of strength, resource utilization efficiency, etc. requires enterprises to make overall planning based on reality, especially with the continuous development of enterprises in recent years and the gradual expansion of enterprise scale. Therefore, enterprises need to rebuild and plan in terms of infrastructure, production and auxiliary functional area layout, overall logistics route planning and design, production operation mode, production organization and logistics operation mode, etc. Some enterprises achieve rationalization of new factory planning layout and capacity improvement through overall relocation, while others re plan and design production and auxiliary systems at the original site to optimize and improve production operation systems. Especially for the construction of new factories, it must comply with lean concepts and requirements, otherwise it will lose its essential significance.

So, in the process of planning and constructing new factories, many enterprises' planning and design schemes cannot reach the level of optimization. Usually, there are some problems in the planning and construction of infrastructure, the determination of production areas and production auxiliary functional areas in the factory, the size of logistics, warehousing areas, capacity expansion reserves, and the re planning and construction of production and operation management models that are suitable for them.

The planning and construction of new factories for enterprises should be guided by national industrial policies, guided by market demand, with the goal of "Made in China 2025" and the premise of actual production capacity, to ensure the realization of the enterprise's future business strategy, to ensure the established product production scale and future production scale expansion reserve, to ensure market share advantages, to comprehensively implement lean production management mode, to create lean production system and lean logistics operation system that adapt to lean production mode, with the goal of improving process level and production efficiency, to produce high-quality products needed by the market with minimal investment and low cost, and to enhance the comprehensive strength of the enterprise.

At the same time, enterprises should take the construction of new factories as an opportunity for secondary entrepreneurship, use the construction of new factories as an opportunity to promote strategic adjustments in product structure, and take measures, long-term planning, and resource investment to strengthen the construction of advanced basic processes.

Problems in the planning and construction of new factories

The planning and construction of a new factory first need to determine the future development strategy and product market prospects of the factory, based on relatively accurate data, such as the production program and product structure positioning of recent, medium and long-term products. At the same time, it is necessary to grasp the advanced manufacturing technology and development dynamics of the products, and fully apply and master lean thinking. The design goal is to have a comprehensive and reasonable planning layout, so that the layout and operation system of the new factory can adapt to and achieve the future lean production mode and purpose.

So currently, most enterprises are influenced by traditional planning and construction models and standards when planning and building new factories, resulting in a lack of significant improvement in production capacity, management ability, process level, production efficiency, product quality, and other aspects of the planned new factories. The fundamental problem lies in the insufficient basis of planning and design data, large accuracy deviation, planning following traditional models and design concepts, and not thoroughly introducing world advanced production and management operation concepts and ideas. For example, the concept of lean production has not been thoroughly understood and applied, and the planning and design are relatively extensive. The design in all aspects is not lean and reasonable, which leads to a series of transformations in the later stage.

There are specific issues with the planning and construction of the new factory

1.工厂未来发展战略目标缺乏可靠依据

新工厂规划建设，目的是要适应企业未来发展需要，这需要企业对未来产品定位、市场份额有较为准确的论证。可很多企业在这一过程中，没有进行大量的数据信息收集与分析，没有对国际、国内、同行业竞争形势、人文与政治环境形势进行较为准确的判断与把握，因此导致对市场份额的盲目乐观，对产品竞争力缺乏忧患意识，对世界先进的制造工艺缺乏预期与创新投入的规划等一系列的问题。在这样的状态下，新工厂规划设计的决策可能导致高投入与低回报，甚至会承担过大的负债压力，易可能导致后续流动资金链断裂的风险。

2.对新工厂规划建设资金的运用偏差

新工厂规划建设需要大量的资金投入，如何把钱花在刀刃上是最重要的，可往往在在资金投入分配上盲目性经常发生，过早的投入高大上设备（智能），过早的引进信息化等管理系统，过早的导入先进的辅助设施等。如果基础没有打造好，各部分系统衔接不好，就会导致先进的设备或成为孤岛或瓶颈，先进的设施不能与其他系统融合配套，先进的信息化系统由于管理的薄弱与管理基础松弛导致功能开发与运用的幅度较小。因此，资金投入到哪一块？购买的东西是不是JUST？设备、设施、系统是否给未来留下了扩展端口，这些都是新工厂规划时首先要考虑的问题。另外，对新工厂的项目投资财务收益率及投资回收年限的测算与分析不够充分和可靠，导致新工厂（或新生产线）无法按照预期回收成本。

3.工艺低耗性测算不准确

3.1 设备资源能力方面

在新工厂工艺布局规划设计时，在明确生产纲领的前提下，要对现有设备资源的能力等进行测算。但由于企业生产模式没有精益化，对设备资源能力测算方法准确性、系统性缺乏，导致企业现有设备能力数据测定结果偏差大，即偏向能力不足的方向，这样的结果会导致未来满足新工厂中长期生产纲领的实现而需要新增的设备资源规模就会产生与实际需要的偏差，新增设备资源规模偏差的产生，终会导致设备资源投入资金的增加，资源投入的浪费将随之产生，无法实现工艺低耗性。

3.2 产品工艺优化方面

新工厂规划建设更是对企业产品工艺进行全面优化的最佳时机，在对产品进行工艺布局之前，要对每种产品的工艺进行优化，这样才能确保新工厂的规划建设具有可持续发展性。但事实往往企业在新工厂规划建设之前，没有对主导产品工艺进行优化，导致产品工艺性差，效率与质量保证水平低下。

3.3 工艺布局方面

产品工艺确定后，企业要根据产品工艺路线的各工艺特点实际进行合理工艺布局，但企业往往为了布局而布局，有时会照搬其它企业的样板，没有根据企业产品特点、批量情况、换产频次情况等进行综合考虑，导致工艺布局后（按照一个流）只顾全了点，无法实现面的整体效果的实现。例如：军工企业产品基本上是多品种小批量的特点，但在工艺布局时，未来实现精益生产的“一个流”方式，就按照某一个产品的工艺流程进行布局，对布局后换产其它产品是否会产品不便等不利因素考虑不足，这样就会导致此布局的能力发挥不足，设备利用率低。另外，在工艺布局时，对物流路线及物流运行规则的制定理念有偏差，不能制定与工艺布局相适应的物流运行规则。

3.4 生产及辅助功能区平面布置方面

在工艺布局确定后，生产线及辅助功能区平面如何布置非常重要，一种方式是按照传统生产模式（推动式生产），企业会将类似工序的设备按照机群式排布，这样的平面布置会导致产品加工全工艺流程的工序不停的转序，会产生大量的搬运浪费，还会因为了减少转序频次而加大单工序的在制品存量，导致在制品库存的增加。另一种方式是将设备按照产品工艺路线来布局，但如果是多品种小批量的产品特点，又很难顾全所有的品种产品。另外，生产辅助功能区的位置设定需要对所服务的生产作业区进行辐射设置，避免因距离产生时间的浪费。

消息来源：天津爱波瑞科技发展有限公司