ISE Seminar Series

MAKING SUSTAINABLE AND ENVIRONMENTAL IMPROVEMENTS THROUGH FOCUSED FACTORIES

Kyle Hurst
Master of Science Candidate
Industrial and Systems Engineering
Rochester Institute of Technology

Date: Thursday, February 08, 2005
Time: 1:00 pm
Location: Room 09-1149 (Kate Gleason Engineering Building)

This thesis begins by examining the reasons why many companies are unable to make significant strides in the ares of environmental and sustainable development. It seems like more companies should be interested in environmental improvement. One method for better organizing and managing a company is Focused Manufacturing. Focused Manufacturing is a method for organizing and aligning a company's resources with its overall business strategy. It is a method of simplifying so that companies will concentrate their efforts on those things they do well. Specifically, focus concerns better fitting the manufacturing strategy, the internal process capability, and infrastructure to the appropriate competitive factors of its business with the aim of enabling that company to gain greater control of it competitive position. It is a method of making factories more manageable by structuring basic manufacturing policies and supporting services so that they focus on a limited and consistent set of manufacturing tasks, instead of many inconsistent, conflicting tasks. The purpose of this thesis is to examine the relationship between focused factories and environmental and/or sustainable improvements. The presentation will attempt to show the correlation between the two through analysis of current research relating to the topic as well as statistical data generated from a survey sent ot small to medium sized manufacturing companies in the Western NY area.

Thesis Committee:

Dr. Brian Thorn (Chair), Industrial & Systems Engineering
Dr. Andres Carrano, Industrial & Systems Engineering

Questions?
Contact Dr. Michael Kuhl at 475-2134 or mekeie@rit.edu