The 3 MS Of Japanese Management

Muri, Mura and Muda- Three Magic Wands of Japanese Management System. The three Japanese mantras of muri mura and muda known as 3M practice is an integral part Japanese manufacturing system. The 3M practice brought down the cost of production to bare minimum without affecting the quality or user friendliness of the product.
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 The effect of elimination of muda or wastage is immediately experienced and the results are visible. The impact of mura and muri are subtle and not visible but equally significant in attaining the end objective of customer satisfaction and cost reduction. 1. MURI - The word muri means unreasonable or irrational approach to any field of operation. - Muri looks for irrationality with four major approaches.

(a) Things or activities that are extremely difficult to do and at the moment beyond the reach should be identified and eliminated from our activities as there is no meaning behind pursuing these activities annd currently beyond the individuals or organization's capability. (b) There is futility in pursuing and doing activities that do not make much sense or it is difficult to find reasons for.
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(c) Eliminate the activities that are done because

you are told to do so without understanding the reason for doing the same or its underlying benefits from performing such activities. (d) Eliminate irrational actions or operations that cause undue or excessive fatigue due to a lot of physical effort, frequent stress to body movement, mental fatigue due to unwarranted work place stress, remembering a lot of things, worrying about defects or breakdowns, struggling to read illegible words and symbols etc.
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Application of muri- A case study

A case of Japanese automobile and machine tool industry. American and European car and machine tool industry designed a car or two-wheeler or a machine tool to last for next twenty to thirty years and to give consistent performance. Therefore, they multiplied the calculated dimensions by the factor of safety of two. This led to increasing dimensions of the components.
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 Therefore, the cost of raw materials was double, the weight of the automobile or machine tool was heavier and less flexible and difficult to handle. As per the thumb rule, half of the cost of a automobile or a machine tool consists of raw materials and if it doubles, the price of the final product also nearly doubles as all other costs are directly or indirectly related to the processing of raw material. The Japanese thought differently, and rationally with customer orientation.
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 Their view point was (a) Is the customer going to use the same car or the two-wheeler for the next twenty or thirty years? (b) Is the customer going to use the same machine tool or the manufacturing technology for the next twenty or thirty years? (c) Is the product development and upgradation of technology going to be negligible in next two to three decades?
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 Why design and manufacture a car or a two-wheeler for twenty to thirty years when you know that you are going to use the same maximum for a period of four to five years? Why manufacture a machine tool to last for thirty to forty years when you know that the technology for manufacturing is going to change every five years. This is precisely muri, or irrationality or unreasonableness.
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 Thus, Japanese designed a car or two-wheeler for five years because that is normally the life span for which the product is effectively used. Therefore, Japanese used a Factor of Safety of 1.25 instead of two. Their raw material cost was about 62.5% of the western design. The end product was identical in terms of product features and user friendliness. The price of the end product was proportionately lower by almost 30% to 35%.
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 The automobiles were also lighter in weight due to lower percentage of the raw material used. This led to the reduction of dead weight to be carried by the vehicle thereby increasing the pick-up of the vehicle as well as reduction in fuel consumption. The end result of practicing muri was a better performing product which is more user friendly and priced much lower than conventional western products.
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2. MURA The Japanese word Mura means irregular, uneven or inconsistent. Either due to lack of interest or over enthusiasm we tend to deviate from the laid out standards leading to inconsistent actions. Such inconsistencies can lead to irrationality and waste. Bottleneck Theory or Theory of Constraints originate from the principle of mura.
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 The bottleneck theory states that the neck of a bottle or the least diameter of a bottle decides the rate of flow out of the bottle. When applied to industry, this theory states that the department in manufacturing chain with least capacity decides the plant capacity. The corrective action is strengthening this weak department by increasing its capacity by minimum investment.
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 The result will be quantum jump in overall performance of organization as the extra capacity is already lying unutilized in other areas. Goldratts theory of constraints also tends to be developed around the same principle of mura. The theory states the weakest link in a chain decides the weight that can be lifted by the chain.
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 The objective is to identify this weakest link and keep on strengthening it to make organization stronger and stronger and make it grow steadily. Kaizen also uses mura as a powerful improvement tool. He prefers to use discrepancy instead of inconsistency. Discrepancy can be identified in areas like men, method, time, facilities, manufacturing aids, materials, production volume, inventory, place etc.
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 Once this discrepancy is identified, it is analyzed, and solution is found out to eliminate the discrepancy leading to culture of continuous improvement. Mura calls for minimum deviation between the best and the worst product or service. Minimizing the range of deviation and minimizing the standard deviation in the statistical process control.
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3. MUDA Muda means waste. Waste is any activity that does not add value. Juran has called all the activities that do not add value the Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ). Taichi Ohno of Toyota Motor Company has identified seven mudas or seven wastes which have been further modified to nine mudas. Elimination of these wastes reduces the cost of production, enhances productivity, reduces cycle time and leads to better customer satisfaction.
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 These wastes are

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Waste from overproduction Wastes due to waiting time Waste due to unwarranted transportation Waste due to excess inventories Processing waste or useless operation in processing waste. Waste of motion due to unnecessary human movement. Waste from product defects or defective parts. Waste in the development of products Waste of opportunities
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7. 8. 9.

1. Waste from overproduction - Normally, the tendency of an organization is always to overproduce to ensure no shortage of material in the market under anny circumstance. - Or to fill up the idle plant capacity during lean period. - In todays dynamic environments, products and services have shorter life cycle. - If a product is in inventory for a long time, it may become obsolete in the market.
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- It also may occupy plant capacity for products that are already there in the stock whereas some of the products for which customers are waiting cannot be produced due to this blockage of capacity. - It leads to piling up of excess inventory, occupying more storage space, excessive material handling cost, interest cost on unsold stock etc.

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2. Waste due to waiting time - Any time wasted in waiting for the parts to arrive due to improper line balancing, or - Waiting for job instructions due to improper planning. - These waiting time has to be identified and eliminated from the system. 3. Waste due to unwarranted transportation - Unwarranted transportation happens due to unplanned and improper plant layout leading to parts/materials being moved multiple times.
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- If materials are not properly placed, they are difficult to find leading to further wastages. 4. Waste from excess inventories - Normally, buffer inventories are kept to take care of inefficiencies like faulty sales forecasting, late deliveries from suppliers, delayed production etc. - In the just-In-Time production system the inventory is progressively reduced to increase the operational efficiency. - Excess inventory leads to increase in ICC .
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- ICC consists of interest cost on capital invested in extra inventory, storage space, extra material and product handling, insurance, product pilferage and obsolescence. 5. Processing waste or useless operation in processing waste - Processing waste occurs due to inefficient process design and improper technology. - This can be improved by proper work study, method study, work measurement, incorporating proper technology and training to operators.
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6. Waste of motion due to human movements. - Unnecessary human motions can be eliminated by studying ergonomics and motion study. - Incorporating simple human motions, proper arrangement of work place, proper location of operating switches, simultaneous and opposite movement of both hands leads to reduction of fatigue i.e. Motion Muda 7. Waste from product defects or defective parts - The waste from product defects or defective part is major muda which not only affects the cost of production but also leads to the loss of sales due to customer dissatisfaction.
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- This involves major cost of rejection, rework and replacement. - The cost of an external failure is ten times the cost of detecting the same failure internally which is again ten times the cost of detecting the failure at the point of origin. - Hence the emphasis should be in the process control or implementation of the six-sigma practice which makes it almost impossible to produce a defective part. 8. Waste in the development of products - Product features that do not add value to the product or service from the customers point of view or his needs and expectations are considered as waste.
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9. Waste of opportunities - A new organization may be performing better in terms of market share, purchasing prices, quality of goods produced, new technology, cheaper and better substitute raw material. - Any loss due to not utilizing this potential area of gain could be classified as an area of muda. The elimination of muri, mura and muda can be done as under: (a) Benchmarking (b) Strategic planning (c) Business Process reengineering
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