Shop Floor

Shop Floor

1. Production Quantities

   • Low
     • 1-100
     • two types
       • Job shop
         • small manufacturing systems
         • Custom / bespoke parts / specialised
           • complex
         • skilled labour
         • example
           • eng school work shop
           • Doc Martins
             • different sole, laces etc
         • Exam Q - what are the characteristics of a job sop
         • 1-100 parts
         • Fixed position of process based layout
         • specialised and cu
         • Wide part and product variations
         • Designed for maximum flexibilty
         • General purpose equipment
           • flexible to deal with hard product variety
             • no common parts
         • high labour costs due to skill
     • Hard product variety
       • complex parts
       • special parts
       • may not get repeat orders
     • layout must be flexible
     • Fixed position
       • large/complex parts
       • one off - not on a transporter line
       • everything is brought to it
       • utilises skilled labour
       • one location for entire manufacturing
       • example
         • submarines
         • ships
       • Exam - advantages of fixed position
         • reduces movement of working items
         • minimise damage or cost of moving
           • important, parts =expensive
         • more continuity of work force
         • reduce the problems of re-planning and instructing people when a new activity is to begin
         • EXAM - disadvantages of fixed position
           • workers involved in more operations = skilled = expensive
           • movement of workers to and from site may be difficult = expensive
           • low equipment utilisation
             • left at a location where it will be needed in a few days, rather than move to somewhere where it would be productive
       • large, heavy product
         • difficult to move
           • workers and processing equipment brought to it
       • in practice
         • large modules = built, brought together - Airbus
           • subparts useually in a process layout, flexible
     • process layout
       • improve efficiency, arrange equipment by function
         • can handle varied process requirements
         • equipment group to do similar tasks
         • different parts with different operation sequence, routed through departments in particular order for their processing
         • Lathe department, milling department, drilling department
       • to much movement for mass production
       • advantages
         • variety of processing methods, greater flexibility
         • general purpose equipment = less costly
           • not vulnerable to equipment failures
         • lower initial investment
       • Disadvantages
         • process inventory costs = high
         • challenging routing and scheduling
         • low equipment utilisation
         • material handling slow and inefficient
   • Medium
     • 100-10,000
   • High
     • 10,000-1,000,000
     • Mass manufacture
   • No sharp cut between quantities, bit of a blurred line

2. Production Variety

   • Hard Product
     • Manufactured products = differ substantially
       • Low proportion of common parts
       • Different product categories
       • Car and a air con unit - different products, no similar parts
   • Soft product
     • small difference in products
       • high proportion of common parts
       • different models in same category
     • Kettles in different colours, cars

3. Product Variety VS production quantity

   • Draw this in exam
     • Inverse relationship between variety and volume

4. Production facilities

   • in order to pick a production system layout, need the following info
     • length of production run
     • number of product variants - variety
     • number of products being produced - volume
     • overall size of the product
       • plane vs phone, difficult to move?
   • layout design
     • substantial investment of resources
     • long term commitments
     • impact on the cost and efficiency of short term ops
     • lots of time/effort put into this
     • cost a lot to do
       • get it wrong = bankrupt
         • cant change it after a year..
     • objectives of layout
       • facilitate attainment of product or service quality
       • use workers and space efficiently
         • paying them dollar
           • want them doing something
         • space costs money
           • larger factory than you need = waste
       • minimise material handling costs
         • less chance of breakages
           • more handling = breakage probability increases
           • minimise waste
       • eliminate unnecessary movement of workers/material
       • minimise production time/customer service time
         • make it quicker = happier = buy more
       • design for safety
         • shut down due to injury = dollar, courts + downtime

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