CELLULAR MANUFACTURING

(FLEXIBLE OPERATIONS)

Topics on Quality, Lean Manufacturing and Productivity

Improvement

Presented by

JORGE ROS

Cellular Manufacturing

Cellular Manufacturing is an approachin which equipment and workstationsnecessary to produce a product arearranged closely together to facilitatesmall lot continuous flow production.

The goal is to have the necessaryflexibility to produce a variety of lowdemand products, while maintainingthe same productivity obtained with alarge scale production.

Picture from Wikipedia

Traditional Batch Processing

One Piece Flow

Handling items one at a time eliminates wastes inherent in batch productionand enables a balanced flow of work.

Multi-Process Handling

Multi-functional Workforce

Zero Op-to-Op Transfer Times

All the operations necessary to produce a component or subassembly are performed in close proximity. Near zero operation-to-operation transfer times are achieved.

Cellular Manufacturing

Cell designers achieve this through modularity

in both process design and product design.

The biggest challenge when implementing

cellular manufacturing in a company is dividing

the entire manufacturing system into cells.

The issues may be conceptually divided in the

"hard" issues of equipment, such as material

flow and layout, and the "soft" issues of

management, such as upskilling and corporate

culture.

Flow in a U-Cell

Equipment and Workstations used to produce are arranged to facilitate acontinuous production flow in small lots.

Station 1 Station 2

Station 5 Station 4

Sta

tion

3

Work

Flow

INPUT

(Components

and

Materials)

OUTPUT

Finished

Goods

EXAMPLE

Example – Single Cell

Several Operators in Series

In a process with several operators, work is divided in small operations, sothat a group of operators team together to work at the same speed,dividing the work load among them.

Cellular Lay Out

Combined Cellular Manufacturing

Pitfalls to avoid

Integrating Subassembly into Main Assembly

Implementing Flexible Operations