From fixed to mixed: rethinking production systems design for increased efficiency

Abstract

Today's market demands customized products that meet all of your customers' needs, which requires companies to adopt a set of strategies that can achieve this efficiently and effectively. Beyond customization, customers want their products delivered as soon as possible, with good quality, reliability and low costs. Lean tools have become increasingly popular as manufacturing and service firms aim to do more with less. We will describe a project developed in a 60-year-old machine tools company that wanted to design a new production system to assemble guillotines and press brakes on the same line, i.e., in a mixed assembly line. The company was dealing with increased demand for its units and needed to add production capability without using more resources. The lean team examined the data, identified the current system's problems and proposed a set of solutions. Let's discuss some of the problems that stood in the way of the company's desire for improving its systems. These situations also could be used to justify the need for redesign.