Day 1

PART I Analysis techniques

• Key issues of assembly operations
  • What is assembly?
  • Factors in assembly performance
    • Part supply
    • Assembly work design
    • Examples
  • Waste in assembly work
    • Recognizing waste in assembly work
    • Eliminating assembly waste
• Product quantity (P-Q) analysis
  • Differences with Group Technology
• Trend and seasonality analysis
  • Responding to demand variability
  • Data aggregation
  • Making sales data talk
  • Demand variability upstream in the supply chain
• Takt time and capacity
  • What is the takt time?
  • Design takt time and operation takt time
  • Common mistakes about takt time
  • Why takt time matters
  • Global and local performance
  • Takt time, labor requirements, and line design
    • The minimum required number of assemblers
    • Assembler job design issues with short takt times
    • Assembler job design issues with long takt times

PART II Assembly concepts

• Visualizing the assembly process
  • Needs and evaluation criteria for tools
  • The problem with facility blueprints
  • Lists and assembly master tables
  • Abstract flow diagrams and their limitations
  • Layout diagrams with flows
    • Two-dimensional diagrams
    • Three-dimensional drawings
    • Integration of text and drawings
  •  Photographs
    • Impact of digital photography
    • Shop floor photography guidelines
  • Video recordings
  • Cardboard mock-ups
  • Discrete-event simulations
• The concept of the assembly line
  • What is an assembly line?
  • Bench assembly versus the assembly line
  • Why assembly lines are controversial in 2005
  • Comparing bench assembly with line assembly
  • Exceptions: where the bench still wins
  • Assembly lines, assembly cells, and line segments
  • Assembly and subassembly
  • All assembly work done in one single line
  • Final assembly line with subassembly feeder lines
  • Modular assembly
  • Pros and cons of subassembly/feeder lines
• Collecting assembly time data
  • Why this needs attention
  • Data collection methods
  • Current status of time and motion studies in manufacturing
    • Predetermined time standards in the automobile industry
    • MTM and MOST
    • Toyota’s TVAL
  • Time studies with video recordings
• Line balancing
  • Assembly line balancing
  • Rebalancing a dedicated line
  • Multiproduct lines with batch versus leveled sequencing
  • Balancing assembly time among products on a mixed-flow line
  • Deliberate imbalances

Homework: Case study of improving an assembly line with a 5-sec takt time

Day 2

PART III Detailed design

• Assembly station sizing
  • Issues with assembly station sizing
  • Assembly stations for small products
  • Assembly stations for large products
  • Ergonomics and safety
    • Standing versus sitting
    • Work height and assembler height
  • Stations with required dwell times
• Detailed design of assembly stations
  • Issues with assembly station details
  • Assembly fixtures
    • Fixtures for manual assembly
    • Fixtures for mechanized or automated assembly
    • In-line mechanical automation
  • Handheld tools
    • Tools attached to the station and not to the assembler
    • Tool positioning and orientation
  • Assembly instructions
    • Instruction sheets
    • Contents of instruction sheets for manual assembly
    • Content of instruction sheets for mechanized assembly
    • Instruction sheets for mixed-flow assembly
    • Authoring instruction sheets
    • Use of information technology
  • Visible management
    • Self-explanatory devices, markings, and color codes
    • Tower lights, stop ropes and other types of andons
    • Counters and production monitors
• Part presentation
  • Scope and purpose
    • Part presentation requirements
    • Controversies about part presentation
  • Key principles of part presentation
    • Removal of packaging materials before delivery
    • Location within arm’s reach of the assembler
    • Orientation
    • Adjustments to specific part characteristics
    • Matching quantities
    • Containers with dunnage for counting
    • Kitting versus lineside supply
  • Single-piece presentation and water spiders
    • Single-piece presentation
    • Water spiders and supermarkets
• Conveyance between stations
  •  Issues with conveyance systems
  • Goals for the conveyance system
  • A few types of conveyance systems
  • Unpowered conveyance
  • Powered conveyance
• Assembly cells
  • About assembly cells
  • The motivation for cell conversion
  • Part supply to assembly cells
  • Range of applicability of the U-shape
  • Pseudo U-shaped cells
• Overall shape of assembly lines
  • Beyond cells
  • Car and related assembly lines
  • Airplane assembly lines

PART IV Assembly quality

• Preventing picking errors
  • About this chapter
  • Mistake-proofing assembly operations
  • Approaches to automatic identification
  • Using kit pallets and product fixtures to prevent mistakes
  •  Mistake-proofing lineside picking
  • Mistake-proofing the kitting process
  • From stores to the line
  • Storage and retrieval
  • Naming items to avoid confusion
  • From the supplier to the dock
• Inspection, test, and rework operations
  • The issues of inspection, test, and rework
  • The literature
    • The quality control literature
    • The lean manufacturing literature
    • The general literature on assembly
  • Is self inspection possible?
  • Inspection and test sequencing
  • Sequencing by decreasing figure of merit and its limitations
  • Sequencing by induction
  • Testing multiple units at once
  • Designing automatic binning operations
  • Rework operations
    • Self-inflicted rework
    • Rework operations