Devising the convergence manufacturing strategy for productivity improvement: Effectiveness based on the human element

The strategy for achieving continuous productivity improvement in engineering and technology management has been crucial for enterprises and countries during the last decade. Within this paper, we are looking for a feasible and reliable strategy providing a smooth context in which the human–technology system could move to achieve continuous productivity improvement. The new and emerging strategy, from the author's point of view, moves through the most successful technical strategies in the production process during the last decade: total quality control (TQC), just in time (JIT), factory automation (FA) and total production maintenance (TPM). Focus is on the human side of advanced manufacturing systems within an effective strategy for 'continuous productivity improvement'.