Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM)

Rajan Suri is internationally regarded as an expert on the analysis of manufacturing systems, and he is the founder of Quick Response Manufacturing (QRM). Suri has consulted for leading firms including Alcoa, Boeing, Danfoss, IBM, John Deere, Ford, AT&T, Harley Davidson, National Oilwell Varco, Pratt & Whitney, Rockwell Automation and Trek Bicycle. Consulting assignments in Europe and the Far East, along with projects for the World Bank, have given him an international perspective on manufacturing competitiveness.

Suri served as Professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1985-2008. He earned his bachelor's degree from Cambridge University (England) and his M.S. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Suri founded the Center for Quick Response Manufacturing in 1993, envisioning a consortium of companies that would work in partnership with the university and with each other to understand and implement lead time reduction strategies.

He has received awards from the American Automatic Control Council, The Institute of Management Sciences and the IEEE. In 1999, Suri was made a Fellow of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME), and in 2006 he received SMEs Albert M. Sargent Progress Award for the creation and implementation of the Quick Response Manufacturing philosophy.

Suri has published numerous books on QRM, including:

Quick Response Manufacturing: A Companywide Approach to Reducing Lead Times (Productivity Press)

It's About Time: The Competitive Advantage of Quick Response Manufacturing (Productivity Press)

MCT: Quick Reference Guide 

The Practitioner's Guide to POLCA: The Production Control System for High-Mix, Low-Volume and Custom Products (Productivity Press)

For more information, or to contact Professor Suri please visit his personal website.