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.

5. Reduce errors in process

Use an expert to diagnose problem:
Provide information on impending limits and outages

No.	Industry SIC	Year	Notes
1	2893	2005	Facing pressure from off-brand ink sellers and sticker-shocked customers, Hewlett-Packard and Lexmark International are launching lower-capacity ink cartridges with smaller price tags. Canon is still the only company to offer individual color cartridges, which run about $12 each, in its cheapest printers. That means running out of, say, yellow, doesn't force users to throw away their unused portions of magenta and cyan. The firm's cartridges also feature see-through plastic that tells users how much ink they're getting.
2	5331	2007	Software is allowing large retailers to implement more logical scheduling and reduce costs. Wal-Mart employed a new computerized system to assign employees to shifts based on store traffic. This move was designed to improve productivity, reduce costs and boost customer satisfaction but employees claim the schedules are unpredictable and inconvenient. The system helps retailers conform to federal wage-and-hour laws and state variations. It may also alert management when a worker is approaching full-time status or overtime, which would require higher wages and benefits.
3	5411	2004	Fixing the stock-out problem requires new IT solutions and systemic changes that cut across the functional boundaries within and between retailers, in the supply chain, and among suppliers. U.S. food retailer H.E. Butt Grocery and UK grocer, Sainsbury, for example, have recently implemented improved IT systems that can more accurately calculate stock-outs based on point-false data, or the lack there of, that is by recognizing when an item should have been sold but wasn't.
4	6021	2007	In order to prevent foreclosure, many banks are approaching customers who are at risk of default on their home loans before they miss a payment. CitiMortgage contacts borrowers with adjustable-rate mortgages by phone and mail before their rate resets. This alerts clients to the upcoming payment increase and explains their options.
5	7372	2004	Product life-cycle management (PLM) software is being embraced as a way of using software to manage a product from dawn to dusk of its like: from creation through development, manufacturing, testing, and then maintenance in the field. PLM's lifelike 3D mock-ups make concepts easier to grasp because the human brain rapidly processes sights like those that are familiar in daily life. At Pratt & Whitney Canada's plant, a 3D manikin that's a computer model reaches into a colorful 3D computer mockup of an aircraft engine, testing to see if a human repair person will encounter any obstructions in accessing parts of a real-life engine.

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