Techshore Institute Blogs about Best Technical and Management Courses: Techshore Inspection Services : FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS STUDY

Introduction

In the year of the 1960s, market competition become more intense.

Between 1960 to 1970 cost was the primary concern. Later quality became a priority. As the market become more and more complex, speed of delivery become something customer also needed.

A strategy was formulated: Customizability. The companies has to adapt to the environment on which they operate, to be more flexible in their operations and to satisfy different market segments .

Thus the innovation of FMS became related to the effort of gaining competitive advantage.

1. FMS is a manufacturing technology.

2.FMS is a philosophy. "System" is key word. Philosophically, FMS incorporates a system view of manufacturing. The word for manufacturer is ‘agility’. An agile manufacturer - who is the fastest to the market, operates with the lowest total cost and has the greatest ability to "delight" its customers. FMS is simply one way that manufacturer are able to achieve this agility.

Studying FMS, we need to keep in mind what Peter Drucker said: We must become manager of technology not merely users of technologies.

1. Flexibility concept. Approaches are

Flexibility means to produce reasonably priced customized products of high quality that can be quickly delivered to customers.

Different approaches to flexibility and their meanings are shown .

Table 1

Approach	Flexibility meaning
Manufacturing	The capability of producing different parts without major re-tooling A measure of how fast the firm converts its processes from making an old line of products to produce a new product The ability to change a production schedule, to modify part rather to handle multi parts
Operational	The ability to efficiently producing highly customized and unique products
Customer	The ability to exploit various dimension of speed of deliveries
Strategic	The ability of a firm to offer a wide variety of products to its clients
Capacity	The ability to rapidly increase or decrease production levels or to shift capacity quickly from one product to another

Thus, what is flexibility in manufacturing?

While variations abound in what specifically constitutes flexibility, there is a common concept about the core elements. Three levels of manufacturing flexibility.

(a) Basic flexibilities

Machine flexibility – is the ease with which a machine can process various operations
Material handling flexibility – is a measure of the ease with which different part types can be transporer and properly positioned at the various machine tools in a system
Operation flexibilities – is a measure of the ease with which alternative operation sequence could be used for processing a part type

(b) System flexibilities

Volume flexibility –is a measure of a system’s capability to be operated profitably at different volumes of the existing part types
Expansion flexibility – is the ability to build a system and expand it incrementally
Routing flexibility –is a measure of the alternative paths that a part could effectively follow through a system for a given process plan
Process flexibility –is a measure of the volume of the set of part types that a system can produce without incurring any setup
Product flexibility – is the volume of the set of part types that can be manufactured in a system with minor setup

(c) Aggregate flexibilities

Program flexibility – is the ability of a system to run reasonable long periods without external intervention
Production flexibility – is the volume of the set of part types that a system can produce without dominent investment in capital equipment
Market flexibility – is the ability of system to efficiently adapt to changing market conditions

2. Seeking benefits on flexibility

Today’s manufacturing strategies is to seek benefits from flexibilities. This is only feasibility when a production system is under complete control of FMS technology. Process- Product Matrix you may realize for an industry it is possible to access for high flexibility by making innovative technical and organizational efforts. Example :Volvo’s process structure that makes cars on movable pallets, rather than an assembly line. The process gains in flexibility. The Volvo system has more flexibility because it uses multi-skill operators who are not paced by a mechanical line.

We may search for benefits from flexibility on moving to the job shop floor structures.

Actually, the need is for flexible processes to permit rapid low cost switching from one product line to another. This is possible with flexible worker whose multiple skill will develop the ability to switch easily from one kind of task to another.

3. FMS- an example of technology and an alternative layout

FMS was proposed in England -1960s under the name ‘System 24’, a flexible machine system that will operate without human operators 24 hours a day at computer control. Beginning -the emphasis was on automation rather than the ‘reorganization of workflow’.

Past FMSs were large and very complex, consisting of dozens of Computer Numerical Controlled machines (CNC) and sophisticate material handling systems. They were highly automated, very expensive and controlled by incredibly complex software. There were only a limited number of industries that could afford investing in a traditional FMS as described above.

4. Advantages and disadvantages of FMSs implementation

Advantages

Faster, lower - cost changes from one part to another would improve capital utilization
Lower direct labour cost, due to the reduction in number of workers
Reducing inventory, due to the planning and programming precision
Consistent and better quality, due to the automated control

Disadvantages

Limited ability to adapt to changes in product or product mix .Example machines are of limited capacity and the tooling necessary for products- even of the similar family, is not always feasible in a given FMS
Substantial pre planning activity
Expensive & costing millions of dollars
Technical problems of exact component positioning and precise timing necessary to process a component

Techshore Institute Blogs about Best Technical and Management Courses

Saturday, April 15, 2017

Techshore Inspection Services : FLEXIBLE MANUFACTURING SYSTEMS STUDY

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