Agility in Made to Order Manufacturing
Strategies for enhancing agility of make-to-order manufacturing systems
A. Subash Babu Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India
Keywords
Agile production, Make-to-order manufacturing, Systems development
Introduction
Manufacturing firms which deal with products that are made-to-order, fall under the Abstract category of intermittent production systems. This paper relates to make-toIntermittent production systems are geared order (MTO) manufacturing envirto produce in batches or small lots. These onment. Initially, the various systems may be of two types depending on issues of concern and problems encountered in relation to typical the length of the manufacturing cycle time. MTO systems are presented to These are short cycle job shops and long emphasize why agility is required in such systems. The need to have cycle job shops. The job shops have also been classified as machine limited shops and better performance measures is discussed. How some of the prolabour limited shops. These firms typically blems related to typical MTO do not hold finished goods inventory. After systems were dealt with in the the customer order is received, design and past is discussed, by highlighting manufacturing activities will be started and the salient features of some selected contributions made tothe lead time required to complete the types wards enhancing agility in MTO of jobs is high. Typically made-to-order and systems. An outline of the system engineered-to-order products fall in this capresently being developed by the tegory. These types of production environauthor for concurrent and integrated management of MTO manments are characterised by functional layout ufacturing organisations, which is of the equipment, and high flexibility of the conceived mainly as an agile production facilities to cater for a wide range management system for MTO enof products. Each product is unique in terms vironment, is also presented. of design,
A. Subash Babu Department of Mechanical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, India
Keywords
Agile production, Make-to-order manufacturing, Systems development
Introduction
Manufacturing firms which deal with products that are made-to-order, fall under the Abstract category of intermittent production systems. This paper relates to make-toIntermittent production systems are geared order (MTO) manufacturing envirto produce in batches or small lots. These onment. Initially, the various systems may be of two types depending on issues of concern and problems encountered in relation to typical the length of the manufacturing cycle time. MTO systems are presented to These are short cycle job shops and long emphasize why agility is required in such systems. The need to have cycle job shops. The job shops have also been classified as machine limited shops and better performance measures is discussed. How some of the prolabour limited shops. These firms typically blems related to typical MTO do not hold finished goods inventory. After systems were dealt with in the the customer order is received, design and past is discussed, by highlighting manufacturing activities will be started and the salient features of some selected contributions made tothe lead time required to complete the types wards enhancing agility in MTO of jobs is high. Typically made-to-order and systems. An outline of the system engineered-to-order products fall in this capresently being developed by the tegory. These types of production environauthor for concurrent and integrated management of MTO manments are characterised by functional layout ufacturing organisations, which is of the equipment, and high flexibility of the conceived mainly as an agile production facilities to cater for a wide range management system for MTO enof products. Each product is unique in terms vironment, is also presented. of design,
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