U-shaped cells
Move from a series of aligned workstations to a U-shaped cell sized to takt time, to produce one piece at a time with a headcount that you adjust to demand.
This course is aimed at team leaders, methods technicians and shop floor managers who run a line of several workstations and see bins of parts piling up between them. By the end, you will know how to time the operations of a product, calculate takt time and the number of workstations, distribute the operations within a U-shaped cell and run that cell with four operators one day and two the next, without loss of productivity. You will also know the four mistakes that cause most first cells to fail: a cell that is too wide, operators trained on a single workstation, forgotten replenishment and a machine too big for the required pace.
What you will be able to do
- Explain in one minute what the U shape changes compared with a straight line: one piece flow, entry and exit side by side, mobile operators.
- Time the sub-operations of a product, distinguishing manual time from machine time, and keep the repeatable minimum.
- Calculate a takt time and derive from it the number of workstations in the cell, taking a bottleneck machine into account.
- Distribute the operations across the workstations and make useful use of the time that does not divide evenly.
- Redistribute the workstations among fewer operators when demand falls, while keeping the same output per person.
- Test a layout by mock-up or full-scale trial before moving the machines.
The path
- What goes wrong on a straight line, and what the U changes 5 min
- Timing by sub-operation 4 min
- Calculating takt time and the number of stations 4 min
- Distributing the operations and drawing the cell 5 min
- Running the cell with two as with four 4 min
- Test before moving the machines 4 min
Prerequisites
Know the product and the sequence of operations on your line. Know what work-in-process inventory is and why Lean counts it as waste. No calculation beyond a division.
The closing quiz
The topic ends with a 7-question quiz, and a certificate is issued on success.