Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1508761
44 SMT007 MAGAZINE I OCTOBER 2023 for any reason. is is great as long as there is a continuous demand, sufficient quality, and on- time delivery in the supply network. Yet this practice spawned a series of compromises, hid- den under the guise of "doing business," which became an accepted and unwanted part of the mass production business model. For mass production, sales organizations have been under pressure to maintain the smooth flow of demand. Large OEM com- panies found that they could link advertising campaign expenses to customer demand influ- ence. It was just a cost of doing business. Unfor- tunately, competitors used the same tools, dis- rupting carefully-craed demand patterns, which resulted in the need for another market- ing tool—and discounted another cost of busi- ness. Of course, competitors were doing the same, all generating a spiraling, cost-driven sales strategy. As this was unsustainable in terms of prof- itability, pressure turned toward designers to create unique and compelling technology that could be used to differentiate new products against competitors. e race for novel tech- nologies was expensive (but newsworthy) as products became smaller, lighter, less power hungry, and smarter—ironically also becom- ing larger, heavier, and more power hungry. As technology innovation became too expensive to sustain, the need for interoperability and commonization of technologies greatly weak- ened this approach. e principle of mass production itself, therefore, in many cases has come under threat. Lines that ought to have been perform- ing continuously were stopped, as the signif- icance of excess inventory cost in the distri- bution network was included in the overall calculations. Product changeovers on assem- bly lines were even more necessary, which increased product mix, and reduced lot quan- tity. Again, this came at a high and hidden cost. Not only were key machines not adding value for much of the time—a fact that most companies somehow kept hidden from their business management—but ironically, more goods inventory was needed to cope with batch production, and to meet the increas- ingly volatile demand from the distribution network. e automotive industry could not sur- vive under such conditions, opting instead to build mass production lines that included the ability to work with variation on the final assembly line, at least to an extent. e final glory of the automotive mass produc- tion line now looks quite different than the original Model T line in that there is now a wide variety of colors and models, and per- formance, comfort, and indulgent options. Sophisticated sequencing systems manage the creation of each individual product with surgical precision. Millions of different com- binations can be supported by just one con- tinuous line.