Hasta La Ideas

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pWhile Netflix is moving towards streaming, the other big U.S. rental movie player, Redbox, still uses physical discs. And those discs need kiosks in the tens of thousands, dotting supermarkets and Wal-Marts across the country, which in turn requires a massive amount of manufacturing./p

pRather than shift production of the kiosks overseas, Redbox manufacturer Flextronics has incorporated “Six Sigma Lean manufacturing techniques” into their North Carolina plant to keep costs down. Beyond the Japanese-style quality control methods we’ll get to in a second, the other tricks and shortcuts of the system are quite interesting. For example, each Redbox is made by a team, and at the start of each unit’s production, a team member is dispatched to the parts warehouse–the “supermarket”–with a “shopping cart” (both shown above). They then load the cart up with every single part and screw they’ll need for a single machine, no more, no less, and bring that back to the team./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/how_to_make_a_redbox_flextronics_keeps_us_manufacturing_competitive_with_lean_innovative_techniques_17454.asp”(more…)/a
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