Introduction to Manufacturing

This Introduction to Manufacturing focuses students on the issues that matter to practicing industrial engineers and managers. It offers a systems perspective on designing, managing, and improving manufacturing operations. On each topic, it covers the key issues, with pointers on where to dig deeper.

Unlike the many textbooks on operations management, supply chain management, and process technology, this book weaves together these threads as they interact in manufacturing. It has five parts:

1. Getting to Know Manufacturing: Fundamental concepts of manufacturing as an economic activity, from manufacturing strategy to forecasting market demand
2. Engineering the Factory: Physical design of factories and processes, the necessary infrastructure and technology for manufacturing
3. Making Information Flow: The "central nervous system" that triggers and responds to events occurring in production
4. Making Materials Flow: The logistics of manufacturing, from materials handling inside the factory via warehousing to supply chain management
5. Enhancing Performance: Managing manufacturing performance and methods to maintain and improve it, both in times of normal operations and emergencies

Supported with rich illustrations and teaching aids, Introduction to Manufacturing is essential reading for industrial engineering and management students – of all ages and backgrounds – engaged in the vital task of making the things we all use.

About the Authors

Michel Baudin is an engineer, author, and consultant who graduated from Mines-ParisTech, in France, in 1977. His career has taken him to Japan, Germany, and finally to the US, where he lives in Palo Alto, California with his wife. He has consulted for numerous leading companies all over the world. In his practice, he supplements direct observation on the shop floor and stakeholder interviews with data mining on clients’ information systems, often identifying previously unknown patterns in product demand or manufacturing operations, leading to specific advice on both management and technology.

In addition to in-house courses for clients, Michel has taught in continuing education for UC Berkeley, the University of Dayton, the Hong Kong Productivity Council, the University of Buckingham, and training companies in multiple countries. He is also a prolific writer and has authored four books for manufacturing practitioners: Manufacturing Systems Analysis (1990), Lean Assembly (2002), Lean Logistics (2005), and Working with Machines (2007). He blogs at www.michelbaudin.com.

Torbjørn Netland is Chair of Production and Operations Management at ETH Zurich in Switzerland (www.pom.ethz.ch) and a cofounder of EthonAI, a startup that develops AI solutions for quality management in manufacturing. He graduated from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway, in 2006, and holds a doctorate from the same institution (2013). He has been a Fulbright visiting research fellow at Georgetown University's McDonough School of Business, a visiting scholar at Cambridge University‘s Institute for Manufacturing (IfM), and a Research Manager in SINTEF.

Torbjørn is currently a Member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Advanced Manufacturing and Value Chains, and a Fellow of the European Academy for Industrial Management (AIM). He has published papers in Management Science, Journal of Operations Management, Production and Operations Management, International Journal of Operations & Production Management, International Journal of Production Research, and MIT Sloan Management Review, among others. He is the recipient of two Shingo Research Awards and numerous teaching awards. He blogs at www.better-operations.com.