A FUNCTION-BASED APPROACH TO ESTABLISHING STANDARDIZATION AND FLEXIBLE WORK CELLS FOR HIGH-VARIETY, LOW-VOLUME MANUFACTURING

Certain types of high-variety, low-volume manufacturing operations employ clusters of machines to execute general classes of operations in the manufacture of their product mix, but those operations differ significantly from job to job. Consequently operations are not standardized and batch and queue operational strategies are employed with all attendant shortcomings. However, closer examination reveals that these operations largely consist of a small number of elemental machine functions that are exercised in various combinations. The functions provide a basis to for defining richly descriptive standardized work at the individual process level using parameters to distinguish the unique settings and characteristics for processing a given job. Moreover, it appears the pareto principle applies to functional sequences, and high frequency sequences can be used to establish system level production engineering issues, including facility layout, process interfacing, and cellular standard work routines that achieve flow and labor balance in a flexible manner for the majority of products. This approach is demonstrated using and industrial case study.