subject: Cellular Manufacturing at Aerospace Industry [print this page] Cellular Manufacturing at Aerospace Industry
Introduction
This article proposes a method for introducing cellular manufacturing in an operating job shop at aerospace industry. By applying cellular manufacturing to produce part families with similar manufacturing processes and stable demand, plants expect to reduce costs and lead-times and improve quality and delivery performance. Our article describes about aerospace industry and cellular manufacturing.
Aerospace industry
The environment in which aerospace operates today is very different from the one in which it has historically succeeded. The decline in defense spending has increased the importance of cost or affordability in a decision process, which previously emphasized the incorporation of state-of-the-art technology into new products. In addition, the industry consolidation is producing fewer companies competing fiercely for a piece of a decreasing pie. Therefore, aerospace industry success depends on its ability to exceed customers' expectations through superior performance, by delivering high quality products in a timely manner, with shorter lead-times and lower costs.
Aerospace manufacturing
The aerospace manufacturing mission statement incorporates the strategic intent of the group as a whole To be the supplier of choice to commercial customers in terms of quality, profitability, and growth as measured by customer, employee and community satisfaction. To that end, Manufacturing's strategy focuses on customer satisfaction, growth and best practices. Using best practices, Manufacturing can provide superior customer satisfaction at lower costs, producing increased business from its existing customers and attracting new customers. An interesting manifestation of this strategy is the way in which major functions and manufacturing centers interact.
Cellular manufacturing
Manufacturing industries are under intense pressure from the increasingly-competitive global marketplace. All manufacturers challenge with the time-to-market, lead-time (shorter product life-cycle), and diverse customer needs to improve the efficiency and productivity of their production activities.
Not too long ago, the layout production systems were based on two concepts: flow shop for high volume and low product variety and job shop for low volume and high product variety. Flow shop is based on a line layout. In function of the sequence of operations required for a product, different specialized machines are organized in line and dedicated to a product or a product family. Generally, these specialized machines are expensive and this layout is not flexible and is profitable for the high production volume.
Cellular manufacturing benefits and drawbacks
Advantages
reduction of setup time
reduction of work-in-process (WIP) and finished goods inventories
reduction of material handling cost and time
reduction of tooling requirements
reduction throughput times
easiness in scheduling and production planning
improvement in product quality
high implementation cost
difficulty to manage machine breakdown, overload, under load and balancing
specialized labor
Disadvantages
1. high implementation
2. specialized labor
Conclusions
This article describes implement the cell at the Machining Center and the Machining Center has begun to realize the benefits expected from the cell. Important challenge in a manufacturing organization is the need to understand and manage capacity. Managers need to develop the skills within the organization to manage capacity as effectively as possible given the tools available. Capacity planning in a manufacturing environment is a complex problem, but the success of a manufacturing organization is tied to its ability to match the required resources to the available capacity as efficiently as possible.
