Lean Assembly

Lean Assembly

by Michel Baudin
Released October 2020
Publisher(s): Productivity Press
ISBN: 9781000285635

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Book description

With examples drawn from aerospace, electronics, household appliance, personal products, and automotive industries, Lean Assembly covers the engineering of assembly operations through:

  • Characterizing the demand in terms of volume by product and product family, component consumption, seasonal variability and life cycle.
  • Matching the physical structure of the shop floor to the demand with the goal of approaching takt-driven production as closely as possible.
  • Working out the details of assembly tasks station by station, including station sizing, tooling, fixturing, operator instructions, part presentation, conveyance between stations, and the geometry of assembly lines as a whole.
  • Incorporating mistake-proofing, successive inspection, and test operations for quality assurance.

    Lean Assembly differs from most other books on lean manufacturing in that it focuses on technical content as a driver for implementation methods. The emphasis is on exactly what should be done. This book should be the "dog-eared" and "penciled-in" resource on every assembly engineer's desk.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication Page
  5. Contents
  6. Figures
  7. Tables
  8. A guided tour
  9. Part A Analysis techniques
    1. Chapter 1 Key issues of assembly operations
      1. 1.1. What is assembly?
        1. Scope of this book
        2. Assembly = assembly and test.
      2. 1.2. Factors in assembly performance
        1. Part supply
        2. Assembly work design
        3. Examples
      3. 1.3. Waste in assembly work
        1. Recognizing waste in assembly work
        2. Eliminating assembly waste
    2. Chapter 2 Product quantity analysis
      1. 2.1. Purpose
      2. 2.2. The concept of P-Q analysis
        1. Difference with Group Technology
      3. 2.3. Bill of materials analysis for mixed-flow lines
      4. 2.4. Order profiling for custom assembly
    3. Chapter 3 Trend and seasonality analysis
      1. 3.1. Purpose
      2. 3.2. Responding to demand variability over time
      3. 3.3. Data aggregation
      4. 3.4. Making the sales data talk
      5. 3.5. Demand variability upstream in the supply chain
      6. 3.6. Conclusions
    4. Chapter 4 Takt time and capacity
      1. 4.1. What is the takt time?
        1. Definition of the term
        2. Design takt time and operation takt time
      2. 4.2. Common mistakes about takt time
      3. 4.3. Why takt time matters
      4. 4.4. Global and local performance
      5. 4.5. Takt time, labor requirements, and line design
        1. The minimum required number of assembler
        2. Assembler job design issues with short takt times
        3. Assembler job design issues with long takt times
  10. Part B Assembly concepts
    1. Chapter 5 Visualizing the assembly process
      1. 5.1. Needs and evaluation criteria for visualization tools
      2. 5.2. The problem with facility blueprints
      3. 5.3. Lists and assembly master tables
      4. 5.4. Abstract flow diagrams and their limitations
      5. 5.5. Layout diagrams with flows
        1. Two-dimensional diagrams
        2. Three-dimensional drawings
        3. Integration of text and drawings
      6. 5.6. Photographs
        1. Impact of digital photograph
        2. Shop floor photography guideline
      7. 5.7. Video recordings
      8. 5.8. Cardboard mock-ups
      9. 5.9. Discrete-event simulations
    2. Chapter 6 The concept of the assembly line
      1. 6.1. What is an assembly line?
      2. 6.2. Bench assembly versus the assembly line
        1. Why assembly lines are still controversial
        2. Comparing bench assembly with line assembly
        3. Exceptions: where the bench still wins
      3. 6.3. Assembly lines, assembly cells, and line segments
      4. 6.4. Assembly and subassembly
        1. All assembly work, done in one single line
        2. Final assembly line with subassembly feeder lines
        3. Modular assembly
        4. Pros and cons of subassembly/feeder lines
    3. Chapter 7 Collecting assembly time data
      1. 7.1. Why this needs attention
      2. 7.2. Data collection methods
      3. 7.3. Current status of time and motion studies in manufacturing
        1. Predetermined time standards in the automobile industry
        2. MTM and MOST
      4. 7.4. Time studies with video recordings
    4. Chapter 8 Tine balancing
      1. 8.1. Assembly line balancing
      2. 8.2. Rebalancing a dedicated line
      3. 8.3. Multiproduct lines with batch versus leveled sequencing
      4. 8.4. Balancing assembly time among products on a mixed-flow line
      5. 8.5. Deliberate imbalances
  11. Part C Detailed design
    1. Chapter 9 Assembly station sizing
      1. 9.1. Issues with assembly station sizing
      2. 9.2. Assembly stations for small products
      3. 9.3. Assembly stations for large products
      4. 9.4. Ergonomics and safety
        1. Standing versus silting
        2. Work height and assembler height
      5. 9.5. Stations with required dwell times
    2. Chapter 10 Detailed design of assembly stations
      1. 10.1. Issues with assembly station details
      2. 10.2. Assembly fixtures
        1. Fixtures far manual assembly
        2. Fixtures far mechanized or automated assembly
        3. In-line mechanical automation
      3. 10.3. Handheld tools
        1. Tools attached to the station and not to the assembler
        2. Tool positioning and orientation
      4. 10.4. Assembly instructions
        1. Instruction sheets
        2. Contents of instruction sheets far manual assembly
        3. Content of instruction sheets far mechanized assembly
        4. Instruction sheets for mixed-flow assembly
        5. Authoring instruction sheets
        6. Use of information technology
      5. 10.5. Visible management
        1. Self-explanatory devices, markings, and color codes
        2. Tower lights, stop ropes, and other types of andons
        3. Counters and production monitors
    3. Chapter 11 Part presentation
      1. 11.1. Scope and purpose
        1. Part presentation requirements
        2. Controversies about part presentation
      2. 11.2. Key principles of part presentation
        1. Removal of packaging materials before delivery
        2. Location within arm’s reach of the assembler
        3. Orientation
        4. Adjustments to specific part characteristics
        5. Matching quantities
        6. Containers with dunnage far counting
        7. Kitting versus line-side supply
      3. 11.3. Single-piece presentation and water spiders
        1. Single-piece presentation
        2. Water spiders and supermarket
    4. Chapter 12 Conveyance between stations
      1. 12.1. Issues with conveyance systems
      2. 12.2. Goals for the conveyance system
      3. 12.3. A few types of conveyance systems
        1. Unpowered conveyan
        2. Powered conveyance
    5. Chapter 13 Assembly cells
      1. 13.1. About assembly cells
      2. 13.2. The motivation for cell conversion
      3. 13.3. Part supply to assembly cells
      4. 13.4. Range of applicability of the U-shape
      5. 13.5. Pseudo U-shaped cells
    6. Chapter 14 Overall shape of assembly lines
      1. 14.1. Beyond cells
      2. 14.2. Car and related assembly lines
      3. 14.3. Airplane assembly lines
  12. Part D Assembly quality
    1. Chapter 15 Preventing picking errors
      1. 15.1. About this chapter
      2. 15.2. Mistake-proofing assembly operations
      3. 15.3. Approaches to automatic identification
      4. 15.4. Using kit pallets and product fixtures to prevent mistakes
      5. 15.5. Mistake-proofing lineside picking
      6. 15.6. Mistake-proofing the kitting process
      7. 15.7. From stores to the line
      8. 15.8. Storage and retrieval
      9. 15.9. Naming items to avoid confusion
      10. 15.10. From the supplier to the dock
    2. Chapter 16 Inspection, test, and rework operations
      1. 16.1. The issues of inspection, test, and rework
      2. 16.2. The literature
        1. The quality control literature
        2. The lean manufacturing literature
        3. The general literature on assembly
      3. 16.3. Is self-inspection possible?
      4. 16.4. Inspection and test sequencing
        1. Sequencing by decreasing figure of merit and its limitations
        2. Sequencing by induction
      5. 16.5. Testing multiple units at once
      6. 16.6. Designing automatic binning operations
      7. 16.7. Rework operations
        1. Self-inflicted rework
        2. Rework operations
  13. Bibliography
    1. 0.1. Books in English
    2. 0.2. Books in Japanese
    3. 0.3. Books in German
    4. 0.4. Books in French
  14. Index

Product information

  • Title: Lean Assembly
  • Author(s): Michel Baudin
  • Release date: October 2020
  • Publisher(s): Productivity Press
  • ISBN: 9781000285635