Human element and productivity improvement: converging manufacturing strategies towards an effective strategy

Summary form only given as follows. Capability improvement is now one the crucial targets within every manufacturing strategy. This is due to high competitive environments within industrial institutions. Despite various changes and vast technological automation in production systems the `human element\´ is still placed at the heart of any successful manufacturing system. In fact, the strategy for keeping continuous productivity improvement in engineering and technology management has been crucial for enterprises and countries over the last decade. Many attempts have been made to reduce the operating role of the human element within the process of industrial production. This experience, along with insufficient attention on the issue of `human factors\´, caused a number of failures. The author believes that by integration of the most successful techniques and strategies (i.e. total quality control (TQC), just in time (JIT), factory automation (FA) and total production maintenance (TPM)) used in advanced manufacturing systems, productivity improvement, innovation, and technological systems effectiveness will be accelerated. The focus is on the human side of manufacturing systems. It will lead us to identify an effective conceptual approach for the establishment of appropriate strategy which includes the key element of "continuous productivity improvement"