Increasingly demanding automotive industry requirements on performance and cost of automotive glass parts requires the flat glass industry to address system-wide, manufacturing improvements. A multidisciplinary research team from the University of Toledo Colleges of Engineering and Business Administration has collaborated under NSF grant with engineers and managers from Pilkington Libbey-Owens-Ford and other companies to seek radical innovation opportunities in flat glass manufacturing technology and operations. The teams unique approach combines assessment of current manufacturing operations, as a "working laboratory", with an evaluation of organizational culture and structure. The study identifies innovation opportunities discovered as a result of modeling overall equipment effectiveness and production throughput in successive manufacturing process steps from the glass melt to finished automotive glass parts. It also examines the impact of culture and structure on a firms ability to identify opportunities for radical innovation and catalyze rapid and effective responses.
