This arrangement often results in faster completion time, lower inventory levels, improved quality, and better employee morale. Teams monitor both the quantity and the quality of their own output. Because team members often share duties, they’re trained to perform several different jobs. Machines are sometimes configured in a U-shape, with people working inside the U. Each team works in a small area, or cell, equipped with everything that it needs to function as a self-contained unit. To counter some of these problems, many manufacturers have adopted a cellular layout, in which small teams of workers handle all aspects of building a component, a “family” of components, or even a finished product. Production lines can back up, inventories can build up, workers can get bored with repetitive jobs, and time can be wasted in transporting goods from one workstation to another. The same is true for the production of Marshmallow Peeps at Just Born: if your function is to decorate peeps, you stand on an assembly line and decorate all day if your function is packing, you pack all day.Īrranging work by function, however, isn’t always efficient. If you’re a cutter, you cut all day if you’re a sewer, you sew all day: that’s your function. At the Vermont Teddy Bear Company, for example, the cutting function is performed in one place, the stuffing-and-sewing function in another place, and the dressing function in a third place. To take an online tour of the Marshmallow Peeps production process, log on to the Just Born Web site at (or see Figure 11.4 “Product Layout at Just Born, Inc.”).įigure 11.4 Product Layout at Just Born, Inc.īoth product and process layouts arrange work by function. When the finished candy reaches the packaging area, it’s wrapped for shipment to stores around the world. The conveyor-belt parade of candy pieces then moves forward to stations where workers add eyes or other details. At the next workstation, the mixture-colored warm marshmallow-is poured into baby-chick–shaped molds carried on conveyor belts. First, the ingredients are combined and whipped in huge kettles. Just Born, a candy maker located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, makes a product called Marshmallow Peeps on an assembly line. In a product layout, high-volume goods are produced efficiently by people, equipment, or departments arranged in an assembly line-that is, a series of workstations at which already-made parts are assembled. For a more colorful “Online Mini-Tour” of this process, log on to the Vermont Teddy Bear Web site at (or see Figure 11.3 “Process Layout at Vermont Teddy Bear Company”).įigure 11.3 Process Layout at Vermont Teddy Bear Company Finally, it winds up in the shipping station and starts its journey to your house. Next, it moves to the dressing station, where it’s outfitted with all the cool clothes and gear that you ordered. It then moves to the stuffing and sewing workstation to get its insides and have its sides stitched together. Your bear begins at the fur-cutting workstation, where its honey-brown “fur” coat is cut. Let’s say that you just placed an order for a personalized teddy bear-a “hiker bear” with khaki shorts, a white T-shirt with your name embroidered on it, faux-leather hiking boots, and a nylon backpack with sleeping bag. To better understand how this layout works, we’ll look at the production process at the Vermont Teddy Bear Company. At each position, workers use specialized equipment to perform a particular step in the production process. Goods in process (goods not yet finished) move from one workstation to another. The process layout groups together workers or departments that perform similar tasks. In this section, we’ll examine four common types of facility layouts: process, product, cellular, and fixed position. The next step in production planning is deciding on plant layout-how equipment, machinery, and people will be arranged to make the production process as efficient as possible.
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