Every company aims at maximizing profit while increasing productivity. They use various strategic plans for these goals whether flexible or rigid. Honda, an American motor company, has adopted a flexible plant over the years both for its production and manufacturing processes. A flexible manufacturing system or plant can be referred to as a system that allows for flexibility in various systems to react to changes whether predicted or unpredicted. The use a flexible manufacturing plant has been successful in the Honda Company case and is considered the best strategic plan.
It is cost effective and allows the company to save money. The Honda Company has a reduced cost because of a few numbers of employees involved in the production process. The plan is also effective in cost production because it reduces the long chain process of manufacturing given the nature of the outcome products. Honda Company has hugely invested in the robot machines in the last decade. Kate Linebaugh, a manager at the company, claims that the robotic plants or machines have been instrumental in the assembly process (Linebaugh, 2015). Use of these plants helps the company use the same or an identical line when producing different types of motor vehicles.
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As compared to other motor companies such as Ford that has used millions of dollars in the reconstruction of new plants to suit their need of different types of cars in Michigan the Honda Company is free from such expenses. A flexible plant has also enabled the company to increase the quality of production as a result of reasons such as system and machine reliability and adaptability of the plants to various operating systems (MacDuffie, 2013). Although the startup cost may be high one cannot underestimate the huge role played by the system in making the Honda Company one of the global leading automotive manufacturing companies.
References
Linebaugh, K. (2015). Honda’s flexible plants provide edge. Wall Street J , 22 , B1.
MacDuffie, J. P., & Pil, F. K. (2013). From fixed to flexible: automation and work organization trends from the international assembly plant Study. In Transforming Automobile Assembly (pp. 238-254). Springer Berlin Heidelberg.
