Shifting from conveyor lines to work cellbased systems: the case of a consumer electric products manufacturer in Brazil
Shifting from conveyor lines to work cellbased systems: the case of a consumer electric products manufacturer in Brazil
Blog Article
The division of process in short-cycle tasks performed along belt conveyors became a widely sought organizational pattern in manufacturing operations following the emergence of mass production.Later on, when manufacturers had to face the<br />challenge to fulfi ll more diversifi ed demands, the derivation of “mixed-model assembly lines” extended the potential utilization of belt conveyors.However, more recently, a number of organizations are abandoning their utilization and switching to the adoption of work-cell based assembly systems.
This article investigates such shift in operations strategy from an international perspective.Firstly, it discusses the experience of<br />electric and electronics industries gloomspite gitz art in Japan, where this trend became a major trend in the late 1990s.To support the understanding of its underpinning rationality, a conceptual review on the advantages and disadvantages of belt conveyor assembly lines is included.
Next, it presents an in-depth longitudinal case study of a consumer electric products manufacturer in Brazil that embarked on a program to migrate from the utilization of conveyor lines to the work-cell andre 3000 new blue sun zip based assembly system in one of itsplants.The implementation of a pilot work-cell in a kick-off project is analyzed and the prospects of the ongoing efforts to deploy similar maneuver in other facilities is presented.