Group technology (GT) and cellular manufacturing involve organizing production around part families and machine cells. GT involves standardizing similar tasks, storing information about recurring problems, and performing similar activities together. Cellular manufacturing reduces flow times, inventories, and allows for rush orders. It involves analyzing machine-component relationships and grouping machines and parts into cells. Benefits of GT and cellular manufacturing include reduced setup times, work in process, defects, and costs as well as improved material flow and customer service.
2. CELLULAR MANUFACTURING
• It is an application of group technology in
manufacturing in which all or a portion of a
firm’s manufacturing system has been
converted into cells
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4. CELL FORMATION APPROACHES
Machine - Component Group Analysis:
Machine - Component Group Analysis is based
on production flow analysis
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5. Production flow analysis involves four stages:
Stage 1: Machine classification.
Machines are classified on the basis of
operations that can be performed on them. A
machine type number is assigned to machines
capable of performing similar operations.
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6. Stage 2: Checking parts list and
production route information.
For each part, information on the operations
to be undertaken and the machines required
to perform each of these operations is
checked thoroughly.
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7. Stage 3: Factory flow analysis.
This involves a micro-level examination of flow
of components through machines. This, in
turn, allows the problem to be decomposed
into a number of machine-component groups.
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8. Stage 4: Machine-component group
analysis.
An intuitive manual method is suggested to
manipulate the matrix to form cells.
However, as the problem size becomes
large, the manual approach does not work.
Therefore, there is a need to develop
analytical approaches to handle large
problems systematically.
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9. EXAMPLE:
Consider a problem of 4 machines and 6 parts. Try
to group them.
Components
Machines 1 2 3 4 5 6
M1 1 1 1
M2 1 1 1
M3 1 1 1
M4 1 1 1
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11. Benefits of Cellular Manufacturing
1. Flow times are reduced
2. Saves process time
3. Reduction in inventories
4. Rush orders can be produced without much
problems
5. Employees feel empowered & derive job
satisfaction
6. Multiple operations get done in a single cell
12. Limitations of Cellular Manufacturing
1. Issues like placement of bottleneck machines
are need to be addressed during cell
formation
2. Machines may require their own individual
stocks of materials
3. Inadequacies in employee education, training
& involvement could come in the way of
proper implementation
13. GROUP TECHNOLOGY
Group technology (GT) is a philosophy that
works in three different ways:
1. By performing similar activities together
2. By standardizing similar tasks
3. By efficiently storing and retrieving
information about recurring problems
14. Group Technology
• Group technology emphasizes on part families
based on similarities in design attributes and
manufacturing, therefore GT contributes to the
integration of CAD (Computer Aided Design) and
CAM (Computer Aided Manufacturing)
• The group of similar parts is known as part family
and the group of machineries used to process an
individual part family is known as machine cell
15. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
Group technology is a management strategy to
help eliminate waste caused by duplication of
effort.
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16. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
It affects all areas of a company, including:
• engineering
• equipment specification
• facilities planning
• process planning
• production control
• quality control
• tool design
• purchasing
• service
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17. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
Some of the well-known tangible and intangible benefits of
implementing GT :
1. Engineering design
• Reduction in new parts design
• Reduction in the number of drawings through
standardization
• Reduction of drafting effort in new shop drawings
• Reduction of number of similar parts, easy retrieval of
similar functional parts, and identification of substitute
parts
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18. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
2. Layout planning
• Reduction in production floor space required
• Reduced material-handling effort
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19. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
3. Specification of equipment, tools, jigs, and
fixtures
• Standardization of equipment
• Implementation of cellular manufacturing
systems
• Significant reduction in up-front costs incurred
in the release of new parts for manufacture
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20. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
4. Manufacturing: process planning
• Reduction in setup time and production time
• Alternative routing leading to improved part
routing
• Reduction in number of machining operations
and numerical control (NC) programming time
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21. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
5. Manufacturing: production control
• Reduced work-in-process inventory
• Easy identification of bottlenecks
• Improved material flow and reduced warehousing
costs
• Faster response to schedule changes
• Improved usage of jigs, fixtures, pallets, tools,
material handling, and manufacturing equipment
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22. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
6. Manufacturing: quality control
• Reduction in number of defects leading to reduced
inspection effort
• Reduced scrap generation
• Better output quality
• Increased accountability of operators and supervisors
responsible for quality production, making it easier
to implement total quality control concepts.
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23. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
7. Purchasing
• Coding of purchased part leading to
standardized rules for purchasing
• Economies in purchasing possible because of
accurate knowledge of raw material
requirements
• Reduced number of part and raw materials
• Simplified vendor evaluation procedures
leading to just-in-time purchasing
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24. BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
8. Customer service
• Accurate and faster cost estimates
• Efficient spare parts management, leading to
better customer service
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