Emergence of manufacturing systems: Manufacturing system losses and mitigation.

Multi model assembly line – An approach towards enhancing flexibility in Indian

Commercial Vehicle industry.
Palavesa Murugan R*1, Dr. Pon. Ramalingam 2

*1
Assitant General Manager, Manufacturing, Ashok Leyland, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India
2
Registrar, Hindustan institute of technology & science, Chennai, India.
*E-Mail: palavesamurugan1994@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Market turbulence, aggressive competition and rapid changes in manufacturing
methodologies and technologies are putting manufacturing operations under increasing
pressure. The various types of manufacturing system losses and the importance of the
system flexibility to overcome the losses in the current scenario is important. The
customer’s changing needs, the shorter life cycle of products, the growing trends of
product variability and the customer’s expectation on shorter lead time are insisting the
compelling need of a shift from dedicated mass production assembly lines to mixed model
assembly lines in Indian commercial vehicles industry.

Keywords: Manufacturing System, Manufacturing system losses, Dedicated assembly line,

Multi model assembly line.

Introduction to Manufacturing Systems

A manufacturing system is a complex arrangement of physical elements characterized by

measurable parameters. Manufacturing system refers to a series of arrangement of operations and
processes used to make a desired final product or component. A collection of integrated facilities
and human resources, whose function is to perform one or more processing and or
assembly operations on a starting raw material, part, or set of parts. It includes the actual
equipment’s for composing the processes and the arrangement of those processes. Ref: Figure 1.

Source: Internet Figure 1

1
The manufacturing process consists of manufacturing processes and assembly operations,
material handling technologies, automation and control technologies and quality control
systems at factory level and enterprise level manufacturing support systems and quality
control systems to deliver the value adds. Refer Figure 2.

Figure 2 – Manufacturing processes

The production system consists of facilities and manufacturing support systems to accomplish the
entire process. In a manufacturing system, if there is a change or disturbance in the system, the
system should accommodate or adjust itself and continue to function efficiently. Normally the
effect of disturbance must be counteracted by controllable inputs or the system itself.

Review of Literature:
According to Stefan Thomke and Donald Reinertsen as stated in Agile Product Development:
Managing Development Flexibility in Uncertain Environments, CALIFORNIA MANAGEMENT REVIEW
VOL. 41, NO. 1 FALL 1998, The term “flexibility” is used in many contexts, here we propose the
following operational definition: Development flexibility can be expressed as a function of the
incremental economic cost of modifying a product as a response to changes that are external (e.g.,
a change in customer needs) or internal (e.g., discovering a better technical solution) to the
development process. The higher the economic cost of modifying a product, the lower the
development flexibility.
Assembly line balancing is considered as a technique by which the tasks are distributed in different
workstation, so that the goal which was predetermined is achieved (Kumar & Mahto, 2013). Line
balancing is a method of levelling the workload across different work station, processes or value
stream, to remove the bottle necks and excess capacity which is not required. If the line is not
balanced constraints slows the process and it will lead to waiting in the downstream operations and
more capacity will lead to a consequence of waiting and adsorption of fixed cost. Assembly line
balancing is often referred to as a decision-making process to assign tasks to workstation in a serial
kind of production process. (Kumar & Mahto, 2013).

2
Various researchers have attempted to address the complexities in manufacturing system
and resolution from various industries, however there are very less broad level method
towards mitigation of manufacturing system losses and countermeasures for resolution of
work imbalance in mixed model assembly lines for commercial vehicle industry.

The emergence of manufacturing assembly lines - A brief history

The greatest innovations of the 20th century was the assembly line. It shaped the
industrial world strongly that businesses that couldn’t adopt the practice soon became
extinct, and it was one of the key factors that helped in reduction of the manufacturing
throughput time at least by 500 percentage.

The Early Assembly Line Concept

The earlier age to the industrial revolution, each expert would create his own parts with
own hands and simple tools, which was the portion of the final product and the
manufactured goods were usually made by hand with individual workers. The final
product was made by bringing those all portions together.

As early as the 12th century, 16,000 workers in the Venetian Arsenal produced ships by
moving them down a canal where they were fitted with new parts at each stop. During
its most successful peak time, rate per day was one ship.

Innovation that changed the manufacturing world

The earlier days of 20th century, One hundred years ago today, Henry Ford and his team at
Highland Park assembly plant launched the world’s greatest contribution to manufacturing
– the first moving assembly line. It simplified assembly of the Ford Model T’s 3,000 parts
by breaking it into 84 distinct steps performed by groups of workers as a rope pulled the
vehicle chassis down the line. Refer: Figure 3

3
 Figure 3 – The world’s first moving assembly line
The new process revolutionized production and dropped the assembly time for a single
vehicle from 12 hours to about 90 minutes.
By reducing the money, time and manpower needed to build cars as he refined the
assembly line over the years, Ford was able to drop the price of the Model T from $850 to
less than $300. For the first time in history, quality vehicles were affordable to the masses.
Eventually, Ford built a Model T every 24 seconds and sold more than 15 million worldwide
by 1927. Thus, the first moving assembly line laid down the foundation by focusing on Cost,
Quality and Delivery.

System Losses
INPUTS System Losses Performance Indicators

Demand Waste Quality

Information Cost

Material Variability Inflexibility Delivery

People & Process Flexibility

Figure 4: System losses due to Waste, Variability and inflexibility.

The way physical assets and resources are configured and optimized to create value and
minimize losses is known as an operating system. To reduce or eliminate the gap between
the expectation and actual performance, the industries need to focus on minimizing the
system losses, i.e., Waste, variability and inflexibility. Refer: Figure 4.

4
The system losses are the critical causes to create a gap between customer and
shareholder aspirations and actual performance. Refer: Figure 5.

Customer/Shareholder aspirations

Performance
Gap = Business Problem

Actual Performance

Time

Figure 5 – Impact of system losses on business performance

The need of the hour is manufacturing industries need to continuously focus, sustain and
improve the deliverables on Quality, Cost and delivery metrics for which the flexibility is
vital. Refer: Figure 6.
To improve performance, the losses should be understood and relentlessly eliminated.
Within any system, the losses of waste, variability and inflexibility will inhibit performance.
These wastes increase cost while adding no value from the customers perspective. They
also extend the period of return on investment (ROI). Identifying “Value” in the eyes of the
customer is a critical starting point in an operational transformation.

Waste Variability Inflexibility

Sample distribution

Higher Additional
“voice of the spec. Cost
customer”

LSL USL Basic

spec.

Price Cost to
6 “sigma” (s.d.) customer Customer
LCL UCL
will pay
“voice of the process”

Figure 6: Methodology to minimize the system losses.

Typical focus of
Typical focus of Typical focus of Mass
lean “six sigma” Customisation
improvement improvement activity
work work

5
Waste:

Certain production system, like Canadian Production System, Toyota Production System
and Caterpillar Production system have laid emphasis on wastes like,

1) Over Production
2) Waiting
3) Transportation
4) Over Processing
5) Inventory
6) Rework
7) Motion
Each of the 7 elements of waste control are key to wealth conservation in directly impacting
business.

Over Production

Over Production waste occurs when we manufacture or assemble more than what is
needed. Overproduction can be identified by processes producing more than is being
“PULLED” by the customer.

The primary causes can be misuse of automation, long process set-up, unleveled
scheduling, unbalanced work load and over engineered manufacturing lines. The same can
be reduced by improving change-over and set-up times and balancing production lines.

Waiting

Waiting waste come from people, process or partially finished goods sitting idle while
waiting for information, material or machine. Waiting can be identified by idle people or
machines waiting on the preceding or following operation, materials, schedules or
information.

The primary causes can be Unbalanced work load, Unplanned maintenance, Long process
set-up time, Misuse of automation, Upstream quality problems and Unleveled scheduling.
The same can be reduced by Refining cycle time, Schedule work load and Improve
balancing of production line.

Transportation

Transportation waste occurs when people, product, equipment or information are moved
more often or further than required. This can be identified by internal movement of People,
materials or information that does not add value to a process. Layout modification is the
best way to mitigate the transportation wastes.

6
Over Processing

These wastes are caused by making a product or service excess than a customer needs or
is willing to pay for. Vestigial features that are not required with respect to customer
perspective is classical example. The same can be identified through Customer survey, Field
reports and Checking of defective / returned components. By enhancing product
knowledge at customer end usage over processing can be eliminated.

Inventory

Inventory wastes hide many problems. Excessive inventory coverups quality problems,
manpower and or production scheduling problems, excessive lead time and vendor
problems. Inventory can be identified excessive inventory of raw materials or finished
goods. The same can be caused by Product complexity, unleveled scheduling, poor market
forecast, unbalanced work load, unreliable shipment by suppliers, miscommunication and
reward systems. The same can be controlled by JIT and KANBAN material in-warding
management systems, accurate product forecast, proper scheduling and improving the
balancing of production lines.

Rework

Rework waste happens when we don’t have robust preventive systems like Poka-Yoke /
Mistake proofing techniques. It can be identified by defective, partial or un- completed
products or services and completed units that are reworked or thrown away. The probable
causes can be weak process control, poor input product quality, unbalanced inventory level,
poor maintenance of machinery, inadequate education/training/work instructions,
product design and or customer needs not fully understood. Rework can be reduced by
improving visual control, SOPs and mistake proofing.

Motion

It is the unwanted movement of people, product and or equipment’s that doesn’t add value
to process or product. This can be identified by excessive walking, moving or handling and
prepare a complex diagram of the actual process flow. The primary causes are poor
people/machine effectiveness, inconsistent work methods, unfavorable facility or cell layout,
poor workplace organization and housekeeping. The motion wastes can be reduced by
value stream mapping of every process and reduce unwanted movement.

Variability

Variability either causes quality or delivery problems to the customer or increases cost due
to adding contingency to make customer happy. Often in practice, variability is initially
dealt with by adding contingency. However, this adds cost and often does very little to
protect outputs (particularly in build to order type environments). Attacking the variability
means that the contingency is not necessary and will also reduce costs in other ways.

7
The source of variability can be Man, Machine (Process)/ method, material, information
and or environment.

People

Defects generated are depended on operator skill level. i.e., Operator A creates more
rework than Operator B. Standard operating procedures will greatly help to reduce
variability caused by skill level gaps.

Process

Process variability is caused by Operator Method and Machine issues. By focusing on

Overall equipment effectiveness, the variation by machine get addressed. The efficient
work load balancing reducing the variability on delivery. Use root cause analysis, 6-sigma
tools, standardised work, kaizen and levelling to understand and attack the causes of
process variability.

Material

Material variability is caused by input quality and delivery time of

material arriving at a process. “Suppliers” in this sense includes internal processes that act as
suppliers to downstream processes, not just external suppliers. The input quality impact the
defect rate and affect the quality and delivery of the final product. Similarly, the delayed
receipt of material affects the delivery promises of any firm.

Information

Information variability is caused by the quality and release timing of information.

Inaccurate forecasts may lead to shortfall of raw materials for Product B and surplus for
Product A and vice versa. We need to standardize and simplify the information collection
and formatting. Have a reactive (flexible) process that does not heavily rely on accurate
forecasts.

Environment

Environment variability covers things such as changes in temperature, humidity etc., which
can affect the process. A good example of environmental factors being important is in
microprocessor production, where manufacturers use rooms with constant temperature
and humidity all the time. This is because experience has shown that changes in
environmental conditions can cause large changes in yields. Need to Protect the process
from changes in the environment or make the process resilient to them.

Variability and Waste are inextricably linked; reducing waste requires variability to be
reduced. During an operational transformation, standardising work is one of the first steps that
needs to be taken. This will reduce variability in the main but will also improve the average
performance of each process as the current ‘best practice’ way of operating will become the
standard. After this, kaizen activities will improve the standard further.

8
Inflexibility

Inflexibility causes either additional costs if absorbed, or customer disappointment if passed on.
Inflexibility adds to the “Cost of Variety”, increasing cost and / or restricting the range of products
that can be offered.

High Inflexible
System
Variety
Costs

e.g. Dell
e.g. Model Computers
T Ford

Flexible
System
Low

Low Product Choice High

Figure 7: Importance of flexibility in high variety product scenario

Source: Agile Product Development for Mass Customization, David M. Anderson (1998)

• Inflexible Systems, geared to low per unit costs, may be cheaper only where market
variety is very low

• Flexible Systems always offer lower total costs in any other case

• Today, markets with very low market variety are very rare

Ford Model T Manufacturing

The Model T brought mobility and prosperity on an undreamed-of scale through
manufacturing efficiencies at a price that anyone could afford. The mass production
process perfected the moving assembly line, creating and defining the industrial age and
enabling Ford to steadily decrease the price of the Model T. In 1908, the first Model Ts sold
for $825. By 1925, it sold for only $260.
The conventional assembly line practice as developed by Henry Ford and Charles Sorensen.
A single product moves along a conveyor and at each station, workers assemble various
items. The entire line changes to a different product on a fixed schedule and then
9
assembles this product for a scheduled period before changing to the next product. Refer:
Figure 8.

Figure 8: Batch Production with changeover

Dell Model Manufacturing

Boxes of Intel microchips and electronic components from supplier by on double-decker

conveyor belts. Workers read orders off a monitor and assemble a new Dell desktop
computer every three to five minutes. 100% Make to Order scenario. The finished boxes,
more than 25,000 on a typical day, then trundle off on other conveyors to be shipped
directly to customers. The whole system is designed so tightly that the factory rarely needs
more than two hours' worth of parts inventory. Parts storage takes up roughly the space of
an ordinary bedroom. Nobody makes computer hardware more efficiently than Dell.

Multi Model Manufacturing

Mixed Model Production is the practice of assembling several distinct models of a product on the
same assembly line without changeovers and then sequencing those models in a way that smooths
the demand for upstream components. The objective is to smooth demand on upstream work
centers, manufacturing cells or suppliers and thereby reduce inventory, eliminate changeovers,
improve Kanban operation. It also eliminates difficult assembly line changeovers. Refer: Figure 9.

Figure 9: Mixed model assembly line without changeover

The Manufacturing Advantage, Slack (1990) talks about four types of inflexibility.

1. Volume
2. Mix
3. Delivery
4. Product
10
Volume

Inflexibility of Volume manifests itself by an inability to cope with changes in total customer
demand. Often, when demand is less than capacity, stock is built up (causing inventory and
overproduction). When demand is greater than capacity, use up stock (or let down
customer if you don’t have enough stock). Usage of Flexible Manpower Systems and Pull
Systems to allow capacity to be flexed.

Mix

Inflexibility of Mix manifests itself by an inability to change between products to meet

changing customer demand. Traditionally change over reduction is used to free up capacity
that was previously used for change overs. Whilst there is nothing wrong with this per se,
in an operational transformation we aim to reduce changeover time to allow more change
overs to occur within the same total amount of change over time. In this way batch sizes
can be reduced, allowing inventory and other forms of waste to be reduced and flexibility
increased. Usage of SMED, flexible machinery / manpower, and standardised work to allow
fast changes in product mix.

Delivery

Inflexibility of Delivery manifests itself by an inability to deliver to the exact lead times the
customer wants. Need to reduce manufacturing lead times so that whatever the customer
wants can be built and shipped quickly.

Product

Inflexibility of Product manifests itself by an inability to provide the product or service the
customer wants.

Henry Ford Philosophy: You can have Need of the Hour: Customer
any colour you want as long as it’s black configured vehicles

Assembly lines

An assembly line is a sequence of workers and machines that each perform a set of specific tasks
on a product that move it closer to a finished form. The primary benefit of assembly lines is that

11
they allow workers and machines to specialize at performing specific tasks, which can increase
productivity. Large-scale assembly lines can allow for mass production of goods that would not be
possible if products were made from start to finish by a single worker. The high productivity of
mass production can also result in lower cost per unit produced than other manufacturing
methods.

Dedicated Assembly lines for uniform product

In the early days of automation, the dedicated mass production assembly lines designed to attain
high productivity for a single model in very large quantities. The benefit of using an assembly line
in the manufacturing process is that a regimented production process helps ensure a uniform
product. In other words, the products made by an assembly line are not likely to exhibit much
variation.

Inflexibility

Assembly lines are geared toward producing a specific type of product in mass quantities, which
can make a company less flexible if it wants to shift production to different types of products. For
example, the machinery used on an assembly line used to make one specific automobile might
have little application for other tasks. Shifting operations to produce different products in an
assembly line environment can be costly and might require additional training and the purchase
of new machinery. To cater the customers changing need to meet their varied business needs, the
manufacturers need to shift for a mixed model production line rather than dedicated assembly
lines.
Example

The Medium and Heavy-duty commercial vehicles are classified based on the application
as,

1. Haulage Vehicles
2. Tipper Vehicles
3. Tractor Vehicles

Depending the application, the discrete fitments like Tipping gear arrangement, Fifth
Wheel coupling arrangement make the assembly sequence and fitments going for a
change. Based on configuration of driveline the vehicles are classified as 4X2 (Two axle
Vehicle), 6X2 (Three axle vehicle), 8X2 (Four axle vehicle) & 10X2 (five axle vehicle). 8X2
and 10X2 Models need to be produced with option one of Twin steerable axles and option
two of Lift Axle. Refer: Figure 10.

12
 4X2 Model 6X2 Model

10X2 TS & LA Model

8X2 TS Model 8X2 LA Model

Figure 10: Different models of Indian Commercial vehicle by driveline configuration

These are the uniqueness in product design and discreteness of fitments can be easily
managed in dedicated assembly lines. The various models of a product have a wide range
of similarities and difference.

Work Balance

The work imbalance is creating the underutilization of manpower and equipment’s and it
is an endanger to installed capacity of the money invested.

Inherent Balance
Inherent balance attempts to provide each workstation with precisely the same amount of
work. With high-volume assembly lines, this may be achievable, to some degree. Manual
assembly is flexible because people are flexible. Analysts divide the work into minute tasks.
They reassign these tasks to work stations such that each station has the same cycle time.
Balancing mechanized or automated production lines with this method is more difficult
since it is rarely possible to find equipment with identical cycle times.
The most formidable problem of inherent balance comes from variation from one cycle to
the next. The work times developed by traditional time study show average deterministic
times of great accuracy. In reality, these times may vary significantly from one cycle to the
next. The time at a given station is, in fact, a distribution. When the time on a station is
longer than the average, it slows the entire line. When the time on a given station on a
particular cycle is less than average, it cannot speed up the line. Thus, the real performance
13
is less than the average cycle times indicate. The more stations, the more this variation
affects performance.
Due to the fitment variations of the number of axles to be mounted itself drastically
varying, the line to be balanced for optimum number of axle models. So that the idleness
of manpower and or equipment will be smoothened for the model mix or else the line
needs re-balancing during every model change which is nothing but a forced batch
production.
Surplus People Balance
Surplus balance means that we simply ignore the imbalance and allow some people to have
less work. While surplus capacity is a reasonable method for balancing machines,
particularly inexpensive machines, it rarely is acceptable for balancing people. When
customer delivery is critical and customer demand irregular, surplus capacity may be used
to ensure fast delivery.
Queuing Balance
When operators have permanent stations in a cell or line, queuing between them
compensates for cycle-to-cycle variation. Floating-fixture assembly lines work on this
principle. If the average work times differ, queuing alone is insufficient. Queuing alone
balances the short-term or dynamic variations, but it will not compensate for longer-term
static variation.
Floating Balance
Floating balance, usually combined with queuing, is frequently a good method for balancing
people. Here, operators monitor the queues to determine which stations are working
ahead and which are falling behind. Operators move to the stations that are falling behind
and assist until that station is caught up. This requires that stations allow for multiple
operators when necessary.
Advantages with mixed-model assembly lines:
 Increased volume flexibility.
 Increased mix flexibility.
 Reduced product dedicated costs.
 More consistent quality.
 Shorter takt time.
 One assembly flow is a driver for commonality and common product architecture.
Disadvantages with mixed-model assembly lines:
 Difficulties in handling the increased time losses in the assembly system.
 Increased sensitivity to disturbances

14
CONCLUSION

Mixed Model Assembly can be an important technique for achieving the smooth, simple workflows
of Lean Manufacturing. Mixed Model Production is the practice of assembling several distinct
models of a product on the same assembly line without changeovers and then sequencing those
models in a way that smooths the demand for upstream components. Traditional mass production
was based on dedicated assembly lines where only one or few products were assembled in large
quantities and thereby achieved a high productivity by the principles of economies of scale. In
today’s marketplace where customers demand high product variety and short lead times, mass
customization has been recognized as the new paradigm for manufacturing. Mixed model assembly
lines are considered to be an enabler for mass customization and are therefore today replacing
many of the traditional mass production assembly lines in industrial environments. Mixed model
assembly lines are advantages in Quality, Cost, Delivery aspects with high flexibility in volatile
volume and high model mix scenario by reducing the system losses.

REFERENCE

1. The Manufacturing Advantage. Achieving Competitive Manufacturing Operations.

Slack (1990)
2. Caterpillar Production System, Version 1.0, 2006.
3. Agile Product Development for Mass Customisation, David M. Anderson (1998)
4. Prasanna.P. Raut and R.R.Lekurwale. Evaluation of competitive priorities of
Manufacturing systems. International Journal of Engineering research & technology.
ISSN:2278-0181. Vol.3 Issue 8, August – 2014.
5. Githin Thomas Nidhin Chacko Regi, LINE LEVELLING FOR HIGH VARIANT LOW VOLUME MIX A
case study in Atlas Copco -Dynapac. Master Thesis 2016.
6. Abdul Nazar K P V Madhusudanan Pillai. Mixed Model Production Sequencing in an Automobile
Industry: A Case Study.
7. Joseph Buckchin, Ezey M Dar – El, Jacob Rubinovitz, Mixed model assembly line design in a
Make-To-Order environment. Computes and industrial Engineering 41 (2002) 405-421.
8. FILIP HELLMAN, BJÖRN LINDAHL, JONAS MALMBERG. Mixed-model assembly line at Volvo
Construction Equipment Requirements for mixed-model assembly line at Volvo Construction
Equipment and a case study at the Arvika plan, 2011.
9. MacDuffie, J. P., Sethuraman, K., & Fisher, M. L. (1996). Product Variety and Manufacturing
Performance: Evidence from the International Automotive Assembly Plant Study. Management
Science, 42 (3), 350-369.
10. Tanrisever, F., Morrice, D., & Morton, D. (2012). Managing capacity flexibility in make-to-order
production environments. European Journal of Operational Research, 216(2), 334-345.
11. Kumar, D. M. (2013). Assembly line balancing: a review of developments and trends in approach
to industrial application. Global Journal of Research in Engineering, 13(2)

15