Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing Second Edition Mikell P. Grooverchapter 15 Group Technology and Cellular Manufacturing 420 CHAPTER CONTENTS 15.1 Part Families 15.2 Parts Classification and Coding 15.2.1 Features of Parts Classification and Coding Systems 15.2.2 Examples of Parts Classification and Coding Systems 15.3. Production Flow Analysis 15.4 Cellular Manufacturing 15.4.1 Composite Part Concept 15.4.2 Machine Cell Design 15.5 Application Considerations in Group Technology 15.5.1 Applications of Group Technology 15.5.2 Survey of Industry Practice 18.6 Quantitative Analysis in Cellular Manufacturing 18.6.1 Grouping Parts and Machines by Rank Order Clustering 18.6.2 Arranging Machines in a GT Cell Batch manufacturing is estimated to be the most common form of production in the Unit- ed States, constituting more than 50% of total manufacturing activity. There is a growin need to make batch manufacturing more efficient and productive, In addition, there isa? increasing trend toward achieving a higher level of integration between the design a manufacturing functions in a firm. An approach directed at both of these objectives ® group technology (GT). Group technology is a manufacturing philosophy in which similar parts ate identified and grouped together to take advantage of their similarities in design and production S® scaneado con CamScannerjon yf are A ou fi ilar parts are arranged into part (a anor antatring character cn ec cach pa numbers may be able to group the veer nee His reasonable to believe thay we vty thes pat 10 30-40 distinct f and this should result in manutenae gee ssa of each member of a family is i by arranging the product facturing efficiencies. The eff aeivee a “| y ara oduction e ; c efficiencies are generally achieves flow. Grouping the producti into machine groups, eles Tacitate ‘work the production of pert fake NEM Into machine cells where each eel specializes in nd cellular produ fon (Section 13.2.4). The origi 1 lo- art family possesses similar design int producing. 10,000 different part Historical Note 15.1 Group technology In 1925, R. Flanders presented a paper in the United § chanical Engineers on wale ee States before the American Society of Me- Lamson Machine Company that would today be called nay rechowloey. T8193 oe sera ofthe Sve Ook elOse be calle group techmoiogy. In 1937. A, saa ot ete: connate essen esr of group exhncogy by oP mating lw line techniques tebe used for sont cor aly siekea bs tach production ig flow Tine sed for work normally accomplished by batch production. In 1949, A. Korling of Sweden presented a paper (in Paris, France) on “group production.” suhos principles are an adaptation of proton fine ecnigues batch manutatring Ta ie papers Geseribes bow work W descatsalsed tis tetera ifs De Redilitedyties ralized nto independent groups.each of which com me tooling to produc a special eategory af pat ; 959, researcher S, Mitrofanoy ofthe Soviet Union published a book entitled Seien- tific Principles of Group Technology. The book was widely read and is considered respons ble for over 800 plantsin the Soviet Union using group technology by 1965. Another researcher. H. Opitz in Germany studied workparts manufactured by the German machine tool industry and developed the well-known parts classification and coding system for machined parts that bears his name (Section 15.2.2). In the United States, the first application of group technology was at the Langston Di- vision of Harris-Intertype in New Jersey around 1969. Traditionally a machine shop arranged yea process type layout, the company reorganized into “family of parts” fines, each of which specialized in producing a given part configuration. Part families were identi tos of about 15% of the parts made in the plant and grouping them into fa tmonted, the changes improved productivity by 507% and reduced lea times from weeks to days ar manufacturing are applicable in a wide variety of Group technology and cellul + appropriately applied under the following conditions: ‘manufacturing situations. GT is most + The plant currently uses traditional batch production and a process type layout (Section 1.1.2),and this results in ‘much material handling effort, high in-process in- ventory, and long manufacturing lead times. : © The parts can be, grouped into part. families. This is a necessary condition, Each ma- chine cell is designed to produce a given part family, or limited collection of part fam- ilies, so it must be possible to group parts made in the plant into families. However, it would be unusual to find a mid-volume production plant in which parts could not be grouped into part families. must undertake when it implements group that acompany at jor tasks Pent obstacles to the application of GT. ‘There are two maj cae significant ol technology. These two tasks represen! scaneado con CamScannerChap. 18 / Group Technology and Cellular Many, ect, nilies. If the plant makes 10,000 different the part fam 04 othe pare dra ee ind grouping the parts into families is a su 3 i mount of time. consumes a sigt Rearranging production machines into machine cells. is time consuming Iy to plan and accomplish this rearrangement, and the machines during the changeover. PAKS, revig, san gt a © Hot Prox iy Group technology offers substantial benefits to companies that hv the pense to implement it. The benefits include: promotes standardization of tooling, fixturing, and setups. + Material handling is reduced because parts are moved within & machine cel jy. than within the entire factory. : * Process planning and production scheduling are simplific # Setup times are reduced, resulting in lower manufacturing lead times, * Work-in-process is reduced. ‘+ Worker satisfaction usually improves when workers collaborate in a GT cel, ‘* Higher quality work is accomplished using group technology. In this chapter, we discuss group technology, cellular manufacturing, and several re topics. Let us begin by defining an underlying concept of group technology: part familia 15.1 PART FAMILIES A part family is a collection of parts that are similar either because of geomettic shape x! size or because similar processing steps are required in their manufacture. The parts vi in a family are different, but their similarities are close enough to merit their incision members of the part family. Figures 15.1 and 15.2 show two different part families The parts in Figure 15.1 are very similar in terms of geometric design, but quite ditierest = terms of manufacturing because of differences in tolerances, production quantities material. The ten parts shown in Figure 15.2 constitute a part family in manufacturing their different geometries make them appear quite different from a design viewpoitt One of the important manufacturing advantages of grouping workpatts inte f= Jies can be explained with reference to Figures 15.3 and 15.4. Figure 15.3 shows po (a) my ical shape and size but different ma :(@) 1,000,000 pe/yr, tolerance = +0.010in. 1015 CR steel, nickel plate; and (b) 100 pe/yr. tole £0,001 in, material = 18 — stainless steel. scaneado con CamScannerbhai eed 6 ey aa ‘ it desi : om eylindrical stock by turning-sone ans ats are machined milling. ° ig: some parts require drilling and/or 7 Tum Tt { t | Man a bt it MMi wat-——foa] pon] Man] [Min] 1 [Mtn] Man 1 ! i t t | Tum Tum} 1 | fil Mill \ fi Mil itt L>SJ ben | pa} | Man Man Man Man, Manf | >| Man | Man | \| Ir t iH i | Turn Turn ‘Mill L—»} Mill Mill ' y Man Man Man Man SZ[omal \) fem] || Man | Man | — || ; \| AHS af \ 1 | | Shipping and Asby aby Gra] [cma] |} receiving ae ee San [Man Min | ot sembly, through plant, dash departments.) 15.3 Process ty milling,“D1ll” Man" = manual oper ed lines inclic pe pla = drillin Escaneado con CamScanner424 Chap. 15 / Group Technology and Cellular Many tin ) Mill Delt Man [| Man A aby a" Hl 1 i Lig Man =—. ! 3 I | Mill Turn >| Drill | Smal | Man | Man [— Man Man re 15.4 Group technology layout. (Key: “Turn” ‘Mill” = milling,“Drll” = drilling,“Grnd” = grinding,"“Asby sembly,“Man” = manual operation; arrows indicate work flow in ma- chine cells.) type plant layout for batch production in a machine shop. The various machine tools re arranged by function, There is a lathe department, milling machine department, di press department, and so on. To machine a given part, the workpiece must be trans; ed between departments, with perhaps the same department being visited several times This results in a significant amount of material handling, large in-process inventory. man} machine setups, long manufacturing lead times, and high cost. Figure 15.4 shows a pro duction shop of equivalent capacity, but the machines are arranged into cells. Each cll is organized to specialize in the production of a particular part family. Advantages of duced workpiece handling yield lower setup times, fewer setups (in some cases, no sett? changes are necessary), less in-process inventory, and shorter lead times. _ The biggest single obstacle in changing over to group technology from a conse: tional production shop is the problem of grouping the parts into families There ate thet general methods for solving this problem. All three are time consuming and involve th analysis of much data by properly trained personnel. The three methods are: (1) vist! spection, (2) parts classification and coding, and (3) production flow analysis. Let us P& Vide a brief description of the visual inspection method and then examine the second third methods in more detail " ' es eee pes is the least sophisticated and least expens! ther phtpante ange of parisinto families by looking at either the phy a method speneraliveonene ee {em into groups having similar features Alt success stori 2 Conaidered to be the least accurate of the three, one of the fe ‘es of GTin the United States made the changeover using the visual ins? metho | pase yough - stm tio™ scaneado con CamScanner3 / Parts Classification and Coding 16 method. This was the [18] (Historical Note 15.1) 8°" Pi | 425 , Vision of 1, ats Intertype in Cherry Hill, New Jersey ol ATS CLASSIFICATION AND Coping 1s ‘This is the most time consti : Lime consuming of the similarities among parts sae ' three meth are ident \ethods. In parts classification and codin ‘Two categories of part similar eat these similarities are related ins codinncostors cerned wi n be distingui el concerned with Patt characteristics euch gL ineulbhed: (1) design attributes, which are turing attributes, which consi tong nelry.size,and materi 2 : 5 sider the sequen. and material: and (2) manufac While the design and manuts “quence of processing steps required to make a part k facturing attributes of a lation is tess than perfect. Ace nn ne atributes On art are usually correlated the corre- and coding systems are devised to in- clude both a part's design ingly, clas and its manufacturing attributes. Reasons for using a it attributes coding scheme include: * Design retrieval. A desig , ieee ee \ des gner faced with the task of developing a new part can use eed Sree to Sanne if a similar part already exists. A simple rt would take ess ti esigni 3 a much less time than designing a whole new * Automated process planning. The part code for a new part can be used to search for process plans for existing parts with identical or similar codes. * Machine cell design. The part codes can be used to design machine cells capable of producing all members of a particular part family, using the composite part concept (Section 15.4.1). ‘To accomplish parts classification and coding requires examination and analysis of the design and/or manufacturing attributes of each part. The examination is sometimes done by looking in tables to match the subject part against the features described and dia- grammed in the tables. An alternative and more-productive approach involves interaction with a computerized classification and coding system, in which the user responds to ques- tions asked by the computer. On the basis of the responses, the computer assigns the code number to the part. Whichever method is used, the classification results in a code number that uniquely identifies the part's attributes. | . The classification and coding procedure may be carried out on the entire list of ac~ Live parts produced by the firm, or some sort of sampling procedure may be used to Sa part families. For example, parts produced in the shop during a certain time period a i be examined to identify part family categori ane wove wit any sampling procedure is isl t the sample may be unrepresentative of the pop ation, ° ee nber clasifiation and coding systems are described in the iter t 13, ish, [hand theese» mumbo f omnes een universally adopted. he reasons See eaten eee should be customized for a given pote or industry. A system that is best for one company may not be best for another company. Escaneado con CamScanner