Cellular manufacturing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cellular Manufacturing is a workplace design reflecting concepts of lean manufacturing. Waste is reduced and resources are combined to provide maximum efficiency. Cellular manufacturing, sometimes called cellular or cell production, is the idea of manufacturing an entire product or small product line in the same work cell. Process and product changeovers are minimized and part operations are linked to help reduce waste and eliminate overproduction.

1 History
2 Implementation
3 Design
4 Benefits
5 See Also
6 References
7 External Links

[edit] History

Cellular manufacturing is a fairly new application of group technology. Group Technology is a management strategy with long term goals of staying in business, growing, and making profits. In order to align with these goals, the right manufacturing strategy is very important for a company to maintain a competitive advantage. Pressures for cost reduction are relentless as the customer expects the highest quality product at minimal cost. Cellular manufacturing minimizes cost in the workplace through the reduction of waste, labor, and inventory.

Cellular manufacturing has the goal of having the flexibility of a high variety, low demand production, while maintaining the high productivity of large scale production. Because the parts are manufactured using the same processes, they must have similar shapes, sizes or processing methods. It is currently used to manufacture anything from hydraulic and engine pumps used in aircraft to plastic packaging components made using injection molding. When one or more parts require the same combinations of processes and resources, cellular manufacturing can be implemented.

[edit] Implementation

The biggest task when implementing cellular manufacturing into a company is dividing the entire manufacturing system into cells. Sometimes it may require investment in new equipment. Some of the time-consuming factors in implementation are:

machine flexibility
cell layout
types of material handling equipment
types of tools and fixtures

Production volume and product mix should not be variable nor should machines be likely to break down. Also, cellular manufacturing requires workers to be proficient in more operations than one. They must be trained to learn the skills needed for every task within their assigned work cell.

[edit] Design

Cellular manufacturing begins with the formation of part families. The departments are organized around a product or a narrow range of similar products.

Parts should be designed to work cells, or dedicated clusters of machines or manufacturing processes. They are usually bigger than typical workstations, but smaller than a complete department. After conversion, a cellular manufacturing layout usually requires less floor space. With these newly designed cells, there is now a better overall control of quality, scheduling, ordering, and record keeping. The figure on the right is an example of a cellular manufacturing layout. Each product is shown to be manufactured in its own work cell.

[edit] Benefits

There are many benefits of cellular manufacturing in a company if applied correctly. Because the manufacturing floor has been reorganized, the processes become more balanced and productivity increases.

Part movement, set-up time, and wait time between operations are reduced, resulting in a reduction of work in progress. Cellular manufacturing also helps eliminate overproduction which leads to reduced inventory. The main advantages are the cost savings and the better overall control of operations.

There are some initial costs of implementing cellular manufacturing, however. Sometimes different work cells can require the same machines and tools, possibly causing a higher investment of equipment and lowered machine utilization. There will also be costs acquired when setting up the cells and moving and reinstalling equipment throughout the factory. Costs of disrupting the production, whether overtime costs or increased subcontracting should also be considered.