Plant and Equipment: Continuous Process Improvement and Optimization

This article presents the historical background, main principles, and concepts of the process engineering and factory operational strategies that emerge from the widespread application of Japanese manufacturing methods (and the Toyota Production System in particular). Continuous process improvement, or 'kaizen' in Japanese, can be seen as a managerial and operational strategy, but has equally important implications for how manufacturing processes are run, and demands deploying systematic methods to (continuously) search for performance improvements. In the former case, the background of lean manufacturing and its major implications are reviewed. In the latter case, the statistical basis for process improvement is summarily described. The broad differences between process improvement, as meant in kaizen, and process optimization, as conventionally practiced in the United States and Europe, are also assessed. The incorporation of these principles in the dairy industry and the opportunities it opens are discussed briefly.