Workcell

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A workcell is an arrangement of resources in a manufacturing environment to improve the quality, speed and cost of the process. Workcells are designed to improve these by improving process flow and eliminating waste. They are based on the principles of Lean Manufacturing as described in The Machine That Changed the World by Womack, Jones and Roos. [1]

The Machine That Changed the World is a 1991 book based on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's $5 million, five-year study on the future of the automobile, written by James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, and Daniel Roos.

Contents

History

Classical manufacturing management approaches dictate that costs be lowered by breaking the process into steps, and ensuring that each of these steps minimizes cost and maximizes efficiency. This discrete approach has resulted in machines placed apart from each other to maximize the efficiency and throughput of each machine. The traditional accounting for machine capitalization is based on the number of parts produced, and this approach reinforces the idea of lowering the cost of each machine (by having them produce as many parts as possible.) Increasing the number of parts (WIP) adds waste in areas such as Inventory and Transportation.

Large amounts of excess Inventory often now accumulate between the machines in the process for reasons to do with 'unbalanced' line capacities and batch processing. In addition, the parts must now be transported between the machines. An increase in the number of machines involved also will reduce each worker's multi-skilling proficiency (since that would need them to learn how to operate multiple machines, and they too will need to move between those machines.)

Lean Manufacturing focuses on optimizing the end-to-end process as a whole. This enables a focus in the process on creating a finished product at the lowest cost (instead of lowering the cost of each step.) A common approach to achieving this is known as the workcell. Machines involved in building a product are placed next to each other to minimize transportation of both parts and people (an L-shaped desk with upper shelves is a good office example, which enables many types of office equipment to be within the reach of a worker). This will minimize waste in both transportation and in the storage of excess inventory.

At first glance, lean workcells may appear to be similar to traditional workcells, but they are inherently different. For instance, lean workcells must be designed for minimal wasted motion, which refers to any unnecessary time and effort required to assemble a product. Excessive twists or turns, uncomfortable reaches or pickups, and unnecessary walking all contribute to wasted motion and may put error inducing stress upon the operator. Workcells can often be reconfigured easily to allow the adaptation of the process to fit takt time. This flexibility allows the work content to be adapted as demand or product mix changes.

Muri (無理) is a Japanese word meaning "unreasonableness; impossible; beyond one's power; too difficult; by force; perforce; forcibly; compulsorily; excessiveness; immoderation", and is a key concept in the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the three types of waste.

Takt time is the average time between the start of production of one unit and the start of production of the next unit, when these production starts are set to match the rate of customer demand. For example, if a customer wants 10 units per week, then, given a 40-hour work week and steady flow through the production line, the average time between production starts should be 4 hours, yielding 10 units produced per week. In fact, takt time simply reflects the rate of production needed to match the demand. In the previous example, whether it takes 4 minutes or 4 years to produce the product, the takt time is based on customer demand. If a process or a production line are unable to produce at takt time, either demand leveling, additional resources, or process re-engineering is needed to correct the issue.

Another Lean approach is to aim to have flexible manufacturing through small production lot sizes since this smooths production. Small lot sizes usually increases transportation waste, but this can be eliminated if machines are back-to-back in a workcell.

Mura (斑) is a Japanese word meaning "unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality", and is a key concept in the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the three types of waste. Waste reduction is an effective way to increase profitability. Toyota adopted these three Japanese words as part of their product improvement program, due to their familiarity in common usage.

Implementation

The implementation of workcells can reduce costs by an order of magnitude (90%)[ citation needed ].

In software development, the core of the workcell is the cross-functional team. This team differs from a more traditional waterfall team:

Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development is a process of writing and maintaining the source code, but in a broader sense, it includes all that is involved between the conception of the desired software through to the final manifestation of the software, sometimes in a planned and structured process. Therefore, software development may include research, new development, prototyping, modification, reuse, re-engineering, maintenance, or any other activities that result in software products.

A cross-functional team is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal. It may include people from finance, marketing, operations, and human resources departments. Typically, it includes employees from all levels of an organization. Members may also come from outside an organization.

WATERFALLCROSS-FUNCTIONAL
Team compositionSeparate rolesCross-functional
Steps areOne at a timeIntegrated
Size of stepsLargeSmall
Focus is onCompleting stepQuality
Team workPresent only at boundaries of tasksPresent all the time
Optimization LevelIndividual Partsthe Whole

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Cost accounting financial term

Cost accounting is the process of recording, classifying, analyzing, summarizing, and allocating costs associated with a process, and then developing various courses of action to control the costs. Its goal is to advise the management on how to optimize business practices and processes based on cost efficiency and capability. Cost accounting provides the detailed cost information that management needs to control current operations and plan for the future.

Inventory goods held for resale

Inventory or stock is the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale.

Lean manufacturing or lean production, often simply "lean", is a systematic method for the minimization of waste (muda) within a manufacturing system without sacrificing productivity, which can cause problems. Lean also takes into account waste created through overburden muri) and waste created through unevenness in work loads (mura). Working from the perspective of the client who consumes a product or service, "value" is any action or process that a customer would be willing to pay for.

The Toyota Production System (TPS) is an integrated socio-technical system, developed by Toyota, that comprises its management philosophy and practices. The TPS organizes manufacturing and logistics for the automobile manufacturer, including interaction with suppliers and customers. The system is a major precursor of the more generic "lean manufacturing". Taiichi Ohno and Eiji Toyoda, Japanese industrial engineers, developed the system between 1948 and 1975.

Operations management An area of management concerned with designing and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations

Operations management is an area of management concerned with designing and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few resources as needed and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. Operations management is primarily concerned with planning, organizing and supervising in the contexts of production, manufacturing or the provision of services.

Lean thinking is a business methodology that aims to provide a new way to think about how to organize human activities to deliver more benefits to society and value to individuals while eliminating waste. The term lean thinking was coined by James P. Womack and Daniel T. Jones to capture the essence of their in-depth study of Toyota's fabled Toyota Production System. Lean thinking is a way of thinking about an activity and seeing the waste inadvertently generated by the way the process is organized. It uses the concepts of:

  1. Value
  2. Value streams
  3. Flow
  4. Pull
  5. Perfection

Quality, cost, delivery (QCD), sometimes expanded to QCDMS, is a management approach originally developed to help companies within the British automobile sector. QCD analysis is used to assess different components of the production process. It also provides feedback in the form of facts and figures that help managers make logical decisions. By using the gathered data it is easier for organizations to prioritize their future goals.

Muda is a Japanese word meaning "futility; uselessness; wastefulness", and is a key concept in lean process thinking, like the Toyota Production System (TPS) as one of the three types of deviation from optimal allocation of resources. Waste reduction is an effective way to increase profitability.

A flexible manufacturing system (FMS) is a manufacturing system in which there is some amount of flexibility that allows the system to react in case of changes, whether predicted or unpredicted. This flexibility is generally considered to fall into two categories, which both contain numerous subcategories.

Supply-chain optimization is the application of processes and tools to ensure the optimal operation of a manufacturing and distribution supply chain. This includes the optimal placement of inventory within the supply chain, minimizing operating costs. This often involves the application of mathematical modelling techniques using computer software.

Value-stream mapping

Value-stream mapping is a lean-management method for analyzing the current state and designing a future state for the series of events that take a product or service from its beginning through to the customer with reduced lean wastes as compared to current map. A value stream focuses on areas of a firm that add value to a product or service, whereas a value chain refers to all of the activities within a company. At Toyota, it is known as "material- and information-flow mapping".

Production leveling, also known as production smoothing or – by its Japanese original term – heijunka (平準化), is a technique for reducing the Mura (Unevenness) which in turn reduces muda (waste). It was vital to the development of production efficiency in the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing. The goal is to produce intermediate goods at a constant rate so that further processing may also be carried out at a constant and predictable rate.

Quick response manufacturing (QRM) is an approach to manufacturing which emphasizes the beneficial effect of reducing internal and external lead times.

Lean Six Sigma is a method that relies on a collaborative team effort to improve performance by systematically removing waste and reducing variation. It combines lean manufacturing/lean enterprise and Six Sigma to eliminate the eight kinds of waste (muda):

Lean dynamics is a business management practice that emphasizes the same primary outcome as lean manufacturing or lean production of eliminating wasteful expenditure of resources. However, it is distinguished by its different focus of creating a structure for accommodating the dynamic business conditions that cause these wastes to accumulate in the first place.

Lean IT is the extension of lean manufacturing and lean services principles to the development and management of information technology (IT) products and services. Its central concern, applied in the context of IT, is the elimination of waste, where waste is work that adds no value to a product or service.

Lean enterprise is a practice focused on value creation for the end customer with minimal waste and processes. The term has historically been associated with lean manufacturing and Six Sigma due to lean principles being popularized by Toyota in the automobile manufacturing industry and subsequently the electronics and internet software industries.

Design for lean manufacturing is a process for applying lean concepts to the design phase of a system, such as a complex product or process. The term describes methods of design in lean manufacturing companies as part of the study of Japanese industry by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At the time of the study, the Japanese automakers were outperforming the American counterparts in speed, resources used in design, and design quality. Conventional mass-production design focuses primarily on product functions and manufacturing costs; however,design for lean manufacturing systematically widens the design equation to include all factors that will determine a product's success across its entire value stream and life-cycle. One goal is to reduce waste and maximize value, and other goals include improving the quality of the design and the reducing the time to achieve the final solution. The method has been used in architecture, healthcare, product development, processes design, information technology systems, and even to create lean business models. It relies on the definition and optimization of values coupled with the prevention of wastes before they enter the system. Design for lean manufacturing is system design.

Green engineering approaches the design of products and processes by applying financially and technolour momprocesses and products in a manner that simultaneously decreases the amount of pollution that is generated by a source, minimizes exposures to potential hazards as well as protecting human health without relinquishing the economic efficiency and viability. As such, green engineering is not actually an engineering discipline in itself, but an overarching engineering framework for all design disciplines.

References

  1. Machine That Changed the World, James P. Womack, Daniel T. Jones, Daniel Roos, HarperBusiness, 1991, ISBN   978-0-06-097417-6