Using A Flexible Manufacturing System At Your Plant

There are a number of ways in which you can focus on increasing production at your manufacturing plant and focusing on finding way to reduce wastes. One of the ways to streamline your system is through the use of a flexible manufacturing system. Usually with flexible manufacturing you will have a series of computer programs that help in automating your system to reduce errors but also to focus on streamlining your program. The machines will be able to establish controls, which are then used to determine cycle times and other things and will then send the signal to the machines. The equipment will then begin production of the products.

This can reduce your overall labor costs but can also assist in giving you more control over your machinery as the production line will have an automated system so you know how much time it will take for a product to be manufactured and how long it will take before it is sent to the customers. Having the ability to know these times will make for better customer relationships. The machines will be considered flexible as they can communicate with each other to adjust cycle times and other things. Each workstation will know how long it will take for production to be completed, which can help in streamlining your entire process. What will happen is that one workstation can complete the production process and then it will alert the next machine, allowing your employees to have plenty of time to set up that workstation so it can then begin production when it gets the signal. The entire purpose of flexible manufacturing is to decrease the amount of delays and issues that are occurring within the manufacturing line.

As long as the machines are properly maintained, there should not be mistakes that occur. What this will do is prevent issues from occurring with the machinery so the entire process can have the controllers set in advance, decreasing delays in production. The nice thing about this is that you can adjust quantities and things when you do have an increase in production and other things. The overall goal will be to have a delay that is less than 30 seconds with the production switchovers.

Machines are now able to multitask, which assists in giving you higher production levels for the organization.In the past the machinery was only able to do one thing at a time. Now when you use flexible manufacturing you can set up the computer system to run multiple projects at the same time. This will not only give you higher production but it will also be able to give you more control over the time frame it takes you to fulfill your customers orders so you can keep up with the customers' demands.You do not want to lock in the machinery to one area or location. Instead the flexible system will allow you to move around the machinery so it can be part of a smooth flowing system and to keep production always moving instead of dealing with wasted idling time.

What about when you have custom orders? Wont those end up taking up time to set up and aren't they a waste? The order size makes a difference in the unit cost but with flexible manufacturing the machinery should be able to handle these types of variations in the manufacturing process so you will be able to have adjustments for things like custom products. It is important that you do establish an order unit amount in order to be able to really understand if flexible manufacturing will be able to work for your organization.