Introduction to

Manufacturing Operation Management

MIME 3240
Chapter – 1
 Manufacturing systems
• A collection of integrated equipment 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.
• The integrated equipment are production
machines and tools, material handling and work
positioning devices, human resources and
computer systems.
Examples of Manufacturing Systems
1) Single Station Cells
2) Machine Clusters
3) Manual Assembly Lines
4) Automated Transfer Lines
5) Automated Assembly Systems
6) Cellular Manufacturing
7) Flexible Manufacturing Systems.
 Components of Manufacturing
System
• Manufacturing system consists of several
components. They are
(1) Production machines
(2) material handling system
(3) Computer system
(4) Human workers.
 Production Machines
In all modern manufacturing systems, most of the
processing or assembly work is accomplished by
machines or with the aid of tools.
In terms of workers participation the production
machines can be classified as
(i) Manually operated
(ii) Semi-automated
(iii) Fully automated.
 Manually operated
• Manually operated machines are controlled
or supervised by a human worker.

• The machine provides the power for operation

and the worker must be at machine
continuously to engage the feed, positioning
the tool, load and unload workparts.

• Examples are the conventional machine tools

such as lathes, milling machines, drill press.
Manually operated machines
 Semi-automated machine
Semi-automated machine performs a portion
of the work cycle under some form of
program control and a worker attends the
machine for the reminder of the cycle.
These machines require worker to unload the
finished part and load the next work piece at
the end of each cycle of the program.
Semi automated machines
 Fully automated machine
• Fully automated machine operate for
extended period of time with no human
attention.
• The extended period means longer than
one work cycle.
• But the worker may need to attend the
machine every tenth cycle or every
hundredth cycle, etc. for supply of new raw
materials loaded to machine, take away the
finished parts from machines and for
maintenance.
Fully automatic machines
Fully automatic machines
 Material Handling System
• Loading involves moving the work units into
the production machine or processing
equipment from a source inside the station.

• Positioning means placing the parts to be in a

known location and position relative to the
work head or tooling that performs the
operation for better accuracy and precision.
 Material Handling System
• Unloading means removing work piece
from the production machine after
production operations and either placed in
a container at the workstation or prepared
for transport to the next workstation in the
processing sequence.
 Material Handling System
• Transporting means moving parts between
workstations in a multi-station system. The
transport function can be accomplished
manually or by the most appropriate
material transport equipment.

• Temporary Storage is the facility to store

the materials or finished goods before any
further processing or shipment.
 Computer control system

• A computer system is required to control

the automated or semi automated
equipment and to participate in the overall
coordination and management of the
manufacturing system.
 Following are the functions of
computer system:
• Communicate instructions to workers.
• Download part programs to computer
controlled machines.
• Material handling system control.
• Schedule production.
• Failure Diagnosis when malfunction occur
and preventive maintenance.
 Following are the functions of computer
system
• Safety Monitoring to protect both human
worker and equipment.
• Quality control to detect and reject
defective work units produced by the
system.
• Operations Management to manage overall
operations.
 Human Resources
• In many manufacturing systems, humans perform
some value added work that is accomplished on
the parts or products, and they are called as direct
labor.

• In systems that are fully automated, direct labors

are needed to perform activities such as loading
and unloading parts, changing tools and
resharpening tools.
 Human Resources

• In automated manufacturing systems,

human workers are needed to manage or
support the system as computer
programmers, computer operators, part
programmers for CNC machines tools
and maintenance.
Classification of Manufacturing
Systems
1) Types of operation performed
2) Number of workstations
3) System layout
4) Part or product variety
 Types of operation performed

Manufacturing systems are distinguished by the

types of operations they perform. They are:
1) Processing Operations on individual
workparts.
2) Assembly operations to combine
individual parts into assembled
object.
 Number of workstations
The number of workstations in the manufacturing
system is a convenient measure of its size. As the
number of work stations is increased, the amount of
work that can be accomplished by the system
increases. This translates into a higher production
rate as compared with a single work station’s
output.
 System Layout
• System layout is the closely related arrangements of
multiple workstations. Workstation layouts organized
for fixed routing are usually arranged linearly in the
production line. Layouts organized for variable
routing can have a variety of possible configurations.
System layout is an important factor in determining
the most appropriate material handling system.
 Part or product variety
The degree to which the system is capable of
dealing with variations in the parts or products it
produces.

Three cases are

1) Single model case
2) Batch model case
3) Mixed model case
• Single model case: All parts or products are
identical.
• Batch-model case: Different parts or
products are produced by the system, but
they are produced in batches because
changeovers are required.
• Mixed-model case: different parts or
products are produced by the system, but
the system can handle the differences
without the need for time-consuming
changes in setup.
 Workstation

It is a location in the factory where some well-

defined task or operation is accomplished by an
automated machine, a worker and machine
combination, or a worker using hand tools or
portable power tools.
 Workload
The is the amount of processing or assembly
work accomplished by the system, expressed in
terms of the time required to perform the work.
 Manual Assembly line
This is a production line consisting of a series of
workstations at which assembly operations are
performed to gradually build a product.
 Machine cell
It is a series of manually operated production
machines to perform a sequence of operations
on a family of parts or products that are similar.
 Flexible manufacturing system (FMS)
This is a highly automated machine cell that
produces part or part families. The most common
form of FMS consists of workstations that are CNC
machine tools.
 References:
• Automation, Production Systems, and Computer-Integrated
Manufacturing by Mikell P Groover.