In the types of process charts, flow process in an important chart. It shows the complete process involved in the producing a part and assembling all the parts into the final product. There is an operation process chart which focuses on the value adding operation and inspection of it. Flow analysis is always a part of industrial engineering.
Ford Motors developed flow production of assembly of automobiles and established assembly lines as an important production layout or a production system. Assembly line balancing became an important technique in industrial engineering.
Toyota Motors executive Taiichi Ohno came to the conclusion that Toyota Motors cannot use the batch quantities recommended by the economic batch quantity (EOQ) formula and thinking on the issue he came out with the idea of making efforts to reduce setup time. Efforts to reduce setup times was an industrial engineering task before Ohno also. Maynard clearly identifies it. But Ohno used to dramatically reduce setup time in collaboration with an industrial engineering Shigeo Shingo. Initially it was reduced to 30 minutes from many hours. Batch quantities on the presses dropped significantly and total inventory cost came down. Shigeo developed a procedure for doing SMED and the method was extended to many machines. Ohno also tried a change in material receipt procedures. He initiated a system of direct delivery of materials from various suppliers to assembly line. So the warehouses disappeared and the obstacles to flow were gone. In Toyota Production System one can see many new policies and procedures that were adopted to increase flow by removing opportunities for creating stocks.
So industrial engineers now have a new area to focus on - Flow Analysis and Improvement Industrial Engineering
In Toyota Motors, a chart named material and information flow chart is used to identify inventories and make efforts to reduce them.
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