It's About Time: The Competitive Advantage of Quick Response Manufacturing

by Rajan Suri

In the decade since the publication of Rajan Suri’s landmark book, Quick Response Manufacturing , the innovative principles of QRM have been proven with impressive results at many companies, big and small, in a variety of industries. While the key principles of QRM remain unchanged, after a decade of teaching QRM workshops to senior executives, Suri has developed a clear, concise, and accessible method of presenting QRM strategy using four core 1. The Power of Time – the huge impact time has on your entire enterprise
2. Organization Structure – how to structure your organization to reduce lead times
3. System Dynamics – understanding how interactions between jobs and resources impact time to make better decisions on capacity, lot sizes, and similar issues
4. Enterprise-Wide Application – QRM is not just a shop floor strategy, it extends across your whole enterprise including material planning and control, supply management, office operations, and new product introduction Presenting new case studies on QRM implementation, It's About The Competitive Advantage of Quick Response Manufacturing illustrates how QRM can not only reduce lead times but also improve quality, reduce operating costs, and enable companies to gain substantial market share. This practical reference explains how factories in advanced nations can use QRM strategy to compete with manufacturers in low-wage countries. In addition, it provides helpful pointers for QRM implementation, including accounting strategies, novel cost-justification approaches, and a stepwise process for implementation. Also included are downloadable resources with five appendices that provide a number of practical details to assist in the success of your QRM implementation. When you are ready to start implementing QRM, you will find that these appendices contain time-saving tips to help you work through implementation issues¿including simple calculation methods and tools to support the design of your QRM strategy. You can also access these Appendices on the Downloads and updates tab on The author, Rajan Suri, recently became one of only 10 people to be inducted into Industry Week's 2010 Manufacturing Hall of Fame.

228 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2010

Reviews

[Kostiantyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick Response Manufacturing or QRM is a modern response to the tough market conditions that many companies face. Why do we need this modern response? Well because “old methods” (that is what the author calls all that TOC, Kaizen, Lean, and Six Sigma kind of things) are insufficient.

Is that so? Is QRM the right methodology to obtain a competitive advantage in current market conditions? Well, market conditions were always tough, and companies always faced challenges to adapt on time. That is true and it’s not going to improve. So no matter what commercial name the author uses, as soon as it can help, we have to learn it.

There were really some good ideas in the book: QRM cells and extra capacity to add flexibility and reduce lead time, POLCA (Paired-cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with Authorization), and EOQ calculation… all that is value-added information. What does not add a lot of value is this new branding. Thus 25-year-old “modern approach” is still not widespread.

The book provides a great explanation of QRM, although lacks a kind of evidence base. Everything is explained on the level of logic, but without concept proof, it’s more like a pitch deck. Good one though.

There were also a couple of things left unclear for me. For example, the author discusses the ways to make a QRM cell really an independent part of the enterprise. Seems to me that a small group of people, that hold all the know-how and do all the work does not need an enterprise that only collects a tribute… This risk was not discussed in the book.

The other one is the capacity of QRM cell. The author describes different ways to improve it but avoids the question of the upper limit. What will happen if the QRM cell lacks some capacity? We may add some machines and people there and there. If the market and demands are still growing, we may add even more. Naturally, QRM cell will transform to conventional enterprise with all the inefficiencies. Just by growing. So where is the upper limit? When we should say “stop” and instead of growing, duplicate the QRM cell? How to manage the demand with 2 duplicated QRM cells? And who will do it? Another QRM cell? Shall we call it a planning cell then?

So, in general, it is a must-read book. But this is a book that requires separating the wheat from the chaff while reading.

[Paul Bjerke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Much better than the average business book, a genre that tends to make a book out of rephrasing the same chapter into multiple chapters. On the contrary, this book has a wealth of great information as the author shares strategies on how to deal with manufacturing in a high mix low volume business.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read it for my job - management provided us with these books after a two day QRM workshop. The workshop was actually interesting (mainly due to a great teacher and simple activities) and made QRM really logical as a concept. The book however is "quite dry" and not the type of management book I would just read "because it seems interesting".
I believe that it's essential to top management and the people who actually will work at implementing QRM in the organization but other than that for all the other employees some type of a course/workshop works perfectly fine to show the benefits of this method.

[Martin Hrabal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Restructure from functional departments to product families/process orintned team cells, and focus on process times reduction. Something that Business Process Management promoted several years. But Mr. Suri added a strategy and metrics for this approach.