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Book Reviews: Factory Physics, by
Wallace Hopp and Mark Spearman
Factory Physics is the kind of textbook
that people actually refer to while doing
jobs out in the real world. It places a
mathematical framework around the
behavior of factories, describing the
underlying relationships with clear,
easy-to-read examples and summing them up
into straightforward Factory Physics
Laws.
The book is targeted toward factory
operations. The first section is a review
of the traditional production management
curriculum, including inventory models,
MRP and JIT. The second section contains
what we find the most useful material in
the book, with chapters on basic factory
dynamics, variability, and pull
production systems. The third section
puts the principles from the second
section to use, and includes chapters on
total quality management, production
planning, shop floor control, scheduling,
capacity planning and inventory
management.
This book is filled with simple
numeric examples and charts, but does not
shrink from including queueing formulas
where they are necessary. The Factory
Physics Laws are easy to remember, but
also important. For example, Law 11
states: “Pay me now or pay me
later: If you cannot pay for variability
reduction, you will pay in one or
more of the following ways:
- Long cycle times and high WIP
levels.
- Wasted capacity (low utilization of
resources)
- Lost throughput
We recommend this book for those who
have some engineering background, but
want to better understand factory
operations and planning systems.
It’ the text that we would use if
we were teaching a course on the
subject.
If you would like to buy this book,
just click on the following link to open
a new window and go directly to Factory
Physics on Amazon’s
website. FabTime is an Amazon
affiliate.
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