Reduce Unique ICDs by Redesigning the Product or the Process

The objective of this activity is to reduce the number of ICDs by reducing the occurrence of an ICD in producing a unit of Output, or by reducing the number of separate ICDs used in the Output. A unique ICD is one of the key activities in the work center's contribution to the final product (O). It is separate and distinct from any other activity in the work center. For example, the fastening of a part onto a subassembly and a quality control check of the subassembly would be unique ICDs.

B. Redesign the process of producing the ICD or Output

Change the process used to produce the ICD or Output to eliminate activities.

7. Standardize ICDs

Standardize components used in process:
Set standard quality and dimensions for a part

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	2011	1995	Chicken gaining over beef; not due as much to health concerns but due to fact that chicken farmers have vertically integrated; growing chickens from birth to processing. More uniform animal size makes automation of slaughtering possible.
2	3312	1991	A specialty steel manufacturer couldn't achieve volume-based cost advantages despite high market share because of its constant attention to customers' differing quality specifications. Management standardized the product range. It managed to convert customers to the standardized products over a 5-year period, without price reductions. Quality and delivery were more consistent for customers.
3	3535	1988	A big purchaser of conveyor belting had 60% of its belts that were specialized in one way or another. Standardization made sense, but different belt users inside the company didn't understand belting well enough to make trade-offs. So the company asked its suppliers to perform a technical survey of all its conveyor-belt applications. Suppliers found the company really needed only 10% special belts and 90% standard, which generated cost savings of almost 20% annually.
4	3541	1991	A Japanese machine tool builder standardized the form elements (e.g., hole diameter) that designers can use for new parts. Therefore, despite different parts, the manufacturing process relies on the same machines, tools, and jigs. This eliminates set up, thus reducing product introduction time.
5	3559	1990	Milacron switched to standardized screws and bolts, using 6 kinds instead of the former 300.
6	3577	1987	At HP's Colorado plant, circuit boards are designed with JIT and robots in mind. It is then easier and quicker when using the boards to introduce new products and maintain a flexible manufacturing system.
7	3651	1990	JVC has redesigned the camcorder and its components to be more efficiently assembled by robots.
8	3711	1986	On the construction of Ford's Taurus: workers were asked for advice before car was designed. Result: car doors reduced from 8 to two pieces. All bolts had the same sized head so employees didn't have to grapple with different wrenches.
9	3711	1987	GM has a new communications standard for its computer networks that eliminates special cabling & interface equipment. GM says the system helped save tens of millions of $s in automation costs at 2 plants.
10	3711	2004	Locator points are where steel pins on the body line grip a car's floor pan and lock it in place. Toyota uses flexible manufacturing and designs car with the same locator points. This principle operates on a simple idea: by presenting various Toyota models to a robot in an exact repeatable way, the flexible line lets the same automatons work on different products. The only change for the robots is in the software as they execute thousands of spot welds on different models.

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