Cellular manufacturing

Cellular manufacturing is a process of manufacturing which is a subsection of just-in-time manufacturing and lean manufacturing encompassing group technology. The goal of cellular manufacturing is to move as quickly as possible, make a wide variety of similar products, while making as little waste as possible. Cellular manufacturing involves the use of multiple "cells" in an assembly line fashion. Each of these cells is composed of one or multiple different machines which accomplish a certain task. The product moves from one cell to the next, each station completing part of the manufacturing process. Often the cells are arranged in a "U-shape" design because this allows for the overseer to move less and have the ability to more readily watch over the entire process. One of the biggest advantages of cellular manufacturing is the amount of flexibility that it has. Since most of the machines are automatic, simple changes can be made very rapidly. This allows for a variety of scaling for a product, minor changes to the overall design, and in extreme cases, entirely changing the overall design. These changes, although tedious, can be accomplished extremely quickly and precisely.

A cell is created by consolidating the processes required to create a specific output, such as a part or a set of instructions. These cells allow for the reduction of extraneous steps in the process of creating the specific output, and facilitate quick identification of problems and encourage communication of employees within the cell in order to resolve issues that arise quickly. Once implemented, cellular manufacturing has been said to reliably create massive gains in productivity and quality while simultaneously reducing the amount of inventory, space and lead time required to create a product. It is for this reason that the one-piece-flow cell has been called "the ultimate in lean production."

Cellular manufacturing is derivative of principles of group technology, which were proposed by Flanders in 1925 and adopted in Russia by Mitrofanov in 1933 (whose book was translated into English in 1959). Burbidge actively promoted group technology in the 1970s. "Apparently, Japanese firms began implementing cellular manufacturing sometime in the 1970s," and in the 1980s cells migrated to the United States as an element of just-in-time (JIT) production.

One of the first English-language books to discuss cellular manufacturing, that of Hall in 1983, referred to a cell as a “U-line,” for the common, or ideal, U-shaped configuration of a cell—ideal because that shape puts all cell processes and operatives into a cluster, affording high visibility and contact. By 1990 cells had come to be treated as foundation practices in JIT manufacturing, so much so that Harmon and Peterson, in their book, Reinventing the Factory, included a section entitled, "Cell: Fundamental Factory of the Future". Cellular manufacturing was carried forward in the 1990s, when just-in-time was renamed lean manufacturing. Finally, when JIT/lean became widely attractive in the service sector, cellular concepts found their way into that realm; for example, Hyer and Wemmerlöv’s final chapter is devoted to office cells.

...
Wikipedia