Cutco Cellular Layout

Cutco is a corporation that manufactures produces and sells cutlery to customers through in-home demonstrations by sales representatives. Their manufacturing of knives can date back to over one hundred years. People remember them as having the standard military knife that was seen in war. Cutco is a well-known corporation and customers buy their products because they know they can rely on their quality of their products. Cutco tries to follow the standard Six Sigma when trying to satisfy customers by trying to deliver nearly perfect products and services. They want to stay around 3.5 million defects per million, anything above that number would fall out of the range they are looking for. In order for these products to be put out to sell, then
In a cellular layout, a company such as Cutco will group dissimilar machines into work centers called cells that process families of parts with similar shapes or processing requirements. Each cell at Cutco has its own job to do for the team before it can reach the next work station. One workstation could involve engraving knives with the Cutco logo, while the next involves sharpening the knife, and the next involves placing on the handle for the knife. This is a process that goes on at the corporation and involves a lot of inventory that is left around that can be seen by any worker/visitor that walks into the workplace. Although the cells are arranged in relation to one another to minimize material movement, there is still time spent walking to each station to retrieve material for the next workstation. The advantages for a cellular layout is that there is reduced set up time, reduced work in progress inventory, better use of human resources and it is easier to control and automate. Since most of the orders that are made at for particular customers then they are separated in trays so that it is easier to locate the product that is being
In an assembly line the work moves in an efficiently and orderly manner from one workstation to the next until the finished product comes off from the end of the line. This layout is suitable for mass production where the demand for a product is stable and volume is high. The kinds of products that are made on the assembly line are products that are standard for a general market and not for a particular customer. If it were for a particular customer, they would be in the cellular layout. Here there is no signage used because each individual knows their job and know where they need to go at certain times of the day. The advantage of the product layout is the efficiency and the ease of its use. The only disadvantage that can be seen here is the inflexibility it has. Let’s say that the product design had to be changed, there would be a lot of time that will be wasted on trying to assembly a new line or fix the one that is already there. Although that is a disadvantage for the product layout, ere the cycle time and the flow time of the product are substantially low compared to a cellular layout because all hands are on deck and are working together. The level of inventory left on the floor is minimum if not any and there is no waste here when it comes to people walking around trying to