1QRM: Not Just Another Buzzword
QUICK RESPONSE MANUFACTURING (QRM) finds its roots in a strategy used by Japanese enterprises in the 1980s. In the late 1980s this strategy was documented by several U.S. authors and became known as time-based competition or TBC.1 The basis of TBC is the use of speed to gain competitive advantage: A company that uses a TBC strategy delivers products or services faster than its competitors. Although you can apply a TBC strategy to any business, including banking, insurance, hospitals, and food service, the focus in this book is on its application in a manufacturing firm. I call this specific application of TBC strategy Quick Response Manufacturing or QRM. By focusing on manufacturing companies, QRM sharpens the ...
