what is cellular manufacturing ?

Question

thier treatment to workforce?
their treatment of resources such as layout and information?
thier approach to customer?
their applicability to particular type of industry?

Answer 1

Cellular manufacturing is arranging manufacturing processes to become directly sequential, rather than by building batches of inventory between operations.

So if a sequence of operations is to forge, broach and then polish, a cell would have a forge hammer sitting next to a broach sitting next to a polish machine. All three operations would be performed on the part before it is dropped into a bin.

The advantages are less floor space and higher productivity (for you 6-sigma types - lower "tack time"). The disadvantage and limitations are higher capital investment and physical arrangement of dangerous or large equipment.

The URL has a white paper on Cellular Conversion. Or e-mail them at [e-mail]