Manufacturing Systems

Manufacturing Systems

Manufacturing Systems - Two important factors in the choice of the manufacturing system are:

(i) The volume or production, and

(ii) The rate of production.

Usually three categories are used in describing the volume of production.

(a) Mass production.

(b) Large batch production.

(c) Small batch production.

It is customary to speak of small batch as 1 to 100 units, large batch over 100 units and mass production over 1 million units.

In general, a larger batch size justifies the choice of manufacturing process with inherent higher production rates. The total production quantity and the production rate together define the justifiable expenditure on special machinery and tooling.

According to one survey, total production in the batch categories may vary from 70-85%. This large proportion emphasizes the need to pay more attention to automation in batch manufacturing.

The basic part manufacturing systems available are as follows:

(i) Conventional machine layout systems.

(ii) Flow line systems.

(iii) Transfer machines.

(iv)Machining centers.

(v) Group technology systems.

(vi)Numerically controlled (NC) machine tools.