Cellular manufacturing

Abstract

The variety now being demanded by consumers has forced industry to reduce batch sizes and to aim primarily at flexibility in production. This was a major problem for production line managers as constant readjustment or reequipment of their technical systems brought a drastic drop in efficiency. Many production managers first tried to resist this trend and insisted on minimum batch sizes for maintaining their former productivity levels. They were generally unsuccessful because of consumer demands for individualized products and competitive pressure. They were thus forced to seek a compromise between the conflicting demands imposed by the need for both flexibility and productivity. Numerous fundamental changes in manufacturing technologies were introduced, some of which are still being perfected at the present time. Cellular manufacturing has been recognized as an essential structural component of World Class Manufacturing for small batch size requirements. Many manufacturing companies are adopting a cellular manufacturing approach in an attempt to improve their competitiveness through, for example, better quality, greater responsiveness, increased flexibility, and set-up time reduction. In the first part, we address human aspects by conducting an exploratory investigation of the effects of cellular manufacturing workers. Performance obstacles are used for addressing human aspects. Performance obstacles are factors in the work environment that restrict productivity by inhibiting workers in the execution of task responsibilities. It is thus crucial to identify and reduce those obstacles for more effective cellular manufacturing implementation. The performance obstacles in this study were investigated based on the workers```` opinions. This part describes research carried out in four Korean manufacturing plants to investigate performance obstacles in cellular manufacturing implementation. The results of the part reveal several important factors in cellular manufact...