Assembly Lines

1
Assembly Lines

• DVD

2
What the DVD Shows

• History of operations management (OM) from 1910
• How to arrange men, machines, materials,
  components in an operation
• The essential role of OM
• How OM has evolved Issues OM focused on at
  different time.

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How to Organize Manufacturing,Not How to
Manufacture

• This DVD shows the state of art of organizing and
  managing process of manufacturing, instead of
  manufacturing technology.
• The ideas presented in this video can be extended
  to services

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OM Topics Touched in DVD

• Productivity
• Mass Production
• Division of labor and interchangeable parts
• Production process
• Layout
• Quality
• Human factor
• Flexible system and Lean system.

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Adam Smith, 1723-1790
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Assembly Line

• Each worker does a few pieces of simple tasks
  repeatedly
• Workers stay at their workstations Products are
  moved intermittently on a conveyer.
• A product stay with a workstation for a fixed
  time (cycle time), which was as short as 10
  seconds.

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Automobile Assembly Process
Midsized 6 cylinder
Midsized 6 cylinder
A
S
H
F
A Front-end body-to-chassis assembly H Hood
attachment F Fluid filling S Start-up testing
Figure 1.7
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Henry Ford, 1863-1947
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Characteristic of Assemble Line

• All products on conveyer move together
• Workload of a workstation
• lt Cycle time

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Bottleneck of Assembly Line

• The cycle time is limited by the slowest
  workstation
• The line cannot start unless every workstation is
  ready
• If one workstation is stuck (due to broken
  machine, bad quality, sick worker,...), whole
  line is stuck.

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Effect of Assembly Line

• Lowered product cost
• Raised quality
• Increased productivity
• Generating jobs.

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Frederick W. Taylor, 1856-1915
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Problems Occurred

• With increased line speed in Ford at early years
  of using assembly line, there came problems
• Workers were bored by doing simple tasks
  repeatedly. But the company did not care what
  workers thought but the pace of line
• More absentees, and high turnover rate.
• Solution of Ford (1920s)
• Raise workers salary.

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Human Factor

• Raising salary solved the problem for a while,
  but not forever.
• Improved role of human after WWII
• Job enlargement
• Job enrichment
• Total quality management.

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What Toyota Did in 1960s 1970s

• Involve workers into operation process
• Value analysis
• Total quality control
• Just-in-time production
• Kanban system.
• Japan passed US in auto production and quality in
  1980s.

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Kiichiro Toyoda, 1894-1952
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Response of US

• US auto industry responded
• Taking the approaches of OM which was proved
  effective in Japan
• Computer aided design and manufacturing.
• The most flexible elements in production is
  people.