{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.011676396997497914, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0, 'mean_word_length': 6.182634730538922, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The application of system engineering methodologies in support of the lean enterprise transformation

Present-day large-scale manufacturers are faced with a market environment characterized by dramatically increased competitive pressures and international influences. The impact on businesses, across a broad industrial spectrum, may be observed through the increased incidence of corporate mergers, joint ventures and consolidations. As the subject companies have encountered this new competitive environment, they are being forced to radically alter their traditional business practices in an effort to remain competitive and in many cases to merely survive. One organizational initiative gaining increasing acceptance across a diverse constituency is the concept of the lean enterprise. The underlying principle of the Lean Enterprise Initiative is that of customer value maximization. The successful Lean Transformation requires a holistic understanding of the systemic interactions that exist among the myriad stakeholders comprising the modern industrial corporation irrespective of the specific market occupancy. These evolving market-driven realities result in intense pressure on manufacturers to cut costs and streamline processes, through improved efficiency across the entire value stream. Unfortunately, the organizational structure extant in most corporations is the result of many years of evolutionary forces and uncoordinated local implementations. This dynamic is especially prevalent in mature companies, whose organizational structure has evolved in a relatively nonintegrated manner, as evidenced by the high degree of fragmentation existing in their infrastructure and manufacturing processes. As corporations attempt to change, the existing organizational structure represents a nearly insurmountable political and cultural impediment. This thesis shall provide an enterprise-wide examination of the organizational structure and processes of a typical large-scale aerospace manufacturer from a systemic perspective. The evolutionary derived organizational and process inefficiencies, which act as sources of muda and barriers to lean implementation shall be identified. It shall then demonstrate the viability and the utility of various Systems Engineering methodologies as key enablers of the organizational change initiatives mandated by the Lean Enterprise Transformation.