運用資通訊科技落實「精實營運」之研究：以製造業個案為例

Abstract

精實工廠(Lean Manufacturing) 起源於日本豐田汽車在1940年代所推出的JIT(Just In Time)生產方法論，或稱TPS(Toyota Production System)。主要訴求是消除不必要的各種浪費，包含人力、物力、空間與時間，以降低生產成本，提高企業的競爭力。所謂的浪費是指任何沒有對客戶帶來價值的各項資源投入，包含原物料、人力、空間與時間。此論點在1990年代，經美國MIT大學的教授們重新命名為” Lean Operations”，擴展到其他產業，並向全世界推展。 精實營運的早期推展是偏重工業工程(Industry Engineering)的手法，透過生產線的設計、批量的設計、製工具設計、人體工學的應用來減少不必要的移動、搬動、加工、等待、庫存行為，而鮮少牽涉到資通訊科技的應用，因為當年的觀念認為集中式的資訊處理技術無法應對精實營運所需要的快速回應。如果當年的資訊系統是以大型主機系統(Mainframe)為主，提供集中式大量資料處理的服務，上述說法也許正確，但是，隨著資訊科技的發達，軟硬體能力的提升、價格的下降，資訊管理人才的普及，以及開放性系統的蓬勃發展，中小型線上即時處理系統已經相當普及，再加上最近的「雲端運算」觀念的推展，網路連接率(connectivity)相當高，已經突破了作業時間與空間的限制，資通訊科技(ICT) 應該可以對精實營運的推展扮演強力推手的角色。 本論文是以個案公司推動「精實轉型」，以達到「精實營運」目的的實際案例，研究ICT 所扮演與所能扮演的角色，以及Lean Thinking對ICT系統發展的影響，探討LEAN Operations 與ICT的關係，提出Lean Thinking對資訊系統規劃與應用的重要。基本的結論是：(1) 資通訊科技(ICT)與精實(LEAN)是夥伴關係，互相扶持， (2) ”精實營運”可以作為資訊部門與非資訊部門間的共通語言，(3) “精實思維”對資訊系統效益的呈現有明顯幫助，(4) 以資通訊科技來推動精實營運的三大重點區塊為：業務流程管理(BPM)、雲端運算架構、紮實的系統整合。 本文亦提出企業推動「精實營運」的建議執行步驟。希望對臺資企業長期競爭力的提升，能夠有所幫助。

The Lean manufacturing concept comes from TPS, Toyota Production System. It aims at eliminating “waste”. The “waste” means any consumption of materials, human resources, spaces and time which do not generate VALUE to customers. The original seven wastes include Transport, Inventory, Motion, Waiting, Overproduction, Over Processing and Defect. The eighth waste was defined by Womack et al.(2003) as “manufacturing goods or services that do not meet customer demand or specifications”. In early stage, Information System is not recognized as a tool to realize Lean Manufacturing. The key reason was that Lean manufacturing need local process with quick response. So, the centralized Mainframe-based application systems in that era are not good to support LEAN. But, the growth of ICT in the recent twenty years has made ICT solution more mature, powerful, connective and quick response to anyone, anytime and anywhere. With smart phone booming in business use, the ICT services can be accessed anytime, anywhere and anyhow to make operation and management more efficiency and real-time. This article is a real case study report to see what ICT can do to eliminate waste in various sections or departments, not only in factoring. The findings are (1) the partnership between ICT and LEAN, (2) use LEAN OPERATION as a common language between IT and non-IT guys, (3) LEAN Thinking is critical to make ICT system much valuable (4) The three key ICT systems to support LEAN are BPM, Cloud Computing architecture and solid System Integration.