Applications of Group Technology

Applications of base Technology1.0 IntroductionNowadays, the spheric economic of the world is getting increase and improves. every(prenominal) of the countries, nations and citizens atomic number 18 developing in a immediate growing trend. Now the manufacturing attend toes to a fault contri plainlye to improve to much(prenominal) a path that produce and counterbalance a good quality product with lower damages. Therefore a term chemical chemical pigeonholing engine room has been introduced. Group applied science actually refers to a lovable of technique which classifies the manufacturing bring out ( some(prenominal)magazines named as family cave in) according to the size, shape, serve up or length. Some companies whitethorn multitude in according to other criterion such as the products function as long as it makes the play alongs works easier. Actually, this theme engineering really squirt help to reduce the employment costs. This is be attain grouping the explode together (group of the sever washbasin be known as family part) can help to save the transportation costs, time of achievement and all this consequently increase the productivity, on that pointfore, group technology definitely pull up stakes be very useful to many of us.Actually people start use group technology since the 1920s. People start using group technology in manufacturing process during that moment. We are too sufficient to see the modelling of group technology in our daily life. For example, when we go to the library in our school, all the book bequeath be affiliate according to the faculty and the title of the books. This method is not only makes the works of the library round easier but also en equal to(p)s the students or lecturer to find the books that they use up easily.During the past decades, people normally utilize group technology to reduce the cost of business in manufacturing process. However, now the situation has changed, group technolo gy has now become an important strategy for most of the manufacturing processes. It is an important aspect to improve the productivity and cause the caller to develop in a better way.2.0 Method to develop family partIn tramp to use the concept of group technology, the companies have to think of the way to classify the group. The first step will be classifying the part of the products (family parts) according to two different attributes which will be ground on the nonrepresentational featureistics and proceeds process characteristics.In geometric characteristics, the products will be classified according to the size, shape and length. However, if the products are being classified according to the exercise process, then the car utilise for production, method of processing and tools used to hold the products will all being take into consideration. This actually is a method to group the part found on their attributes. Therefore, the corporation should observe their own produc t and determine the opera hat way to classify the products.For example, for those company that actually own a factory that produce screw or bolt nut, the best method of classification will be geometric classification since the products may varies in shape and size. However, if the company is actually a health care company, and they are producing body shampoo, toothpaste and mouthwash then the better way to classify the product will be the operation processing classification. This is because the products produced are actually all the very(prenominal) in term of size and shape, but they may be varying in flavor and smell. This is make the operation process to be different from each other. indeed, the next step will be find out the method to tier part families. Normally, the company will use trinity different methods to form the part families. The methods include cryptogram and classification, manual opthalmic inspection and production flow depth psychology. Different product m ay have different method to form the part families. The company should find the best way to group them and obtain the best result.2.1 Classification and cryptographClassification is a process to group all the related parts into a group and sometimes can be known as part families. Wherease, cryptograph is means that the part families are being assigned with a symbol. People will be able to obtain the information of the particular product based on the code. Each character of the code also carries the information of the previous character. This is the most effective and accurate method to classify group technology among these leash methods.Nowadays, there are almost more than 100 types of classification and coding are procurable in the world. Besides, the coding outline may vary from one company to another company. Many company had convey some experts to improve the coding system but there is no any universal adoption until now. Some of the people may think that coding is just a simple task and can be easily done. However, it is actually a very difficult complex problem. Many time and zippo have to be spent in order to find the best coding system that worthy for the company.As stated above, there are about 100 broad of coding system available in the world. However, all of the classification and the coding systems are actually can be grouped into three different kind. That will be Hierarchical (monocode), Attribute (polycode) and Hybrid (mixed code).Hierarchical (monocode)Hierarchical (monocode) is actually a coding system which the each character being used will need to depend on the meaning and carry along the information of the previous character. This kind of system also will deliver a tree structure pattern. The benefit of using this coding system will be the coding system is seem to be more apparent and all the information will be able to obtained based on the code itself. Hierarchical (monocode) is very useful in many ways particularly when the products are differing in shape, size or other geometric characteristics.Forming a good hierarchal system can be very difficult. However, there are some hints for those companies who wish to form ranked system. When forming the codes, the company should ask themselves some questions. The answers collected from the choices will enable them to form an effective coding system.The benefits of this kind of coding system will be enables us to obtain many information within a atomic number 53 few figs code. Furthermore, this kind system makes some part of the part can bring along some useful abstracting information to the company. However, the dis improvement will be it is quite impossible to produce a stainless hierarchical system. The other disadvantage will be the existence of sub group can maven to many different sub-sub group, this cause some position having blank code.The figure above is an example of hierarchical (monocode) system and we can see that there is some imperfectio n in this system due to there is some empty coding exists. There some researches being done in order to improve and increase the efficiency of this hierarchical system. Attribute (Polycode)The attribute code system sometimes can be known as polycode and chain code system. This code is different with the monocode in term of their digits. In this polycode system, the digits within the code are all carrying different information. Each digit represents each different attribute of the part.The advantage of this attribute (polycode) system will be very easily understood. This is due to each character is self-sufficing from one another. The company can know the details exactly after they saw the code. Unlike hierarchical code, the character has to depend on the previous information. Therefore, only the users who are familiar with the process can glance over the exact details. But this kind of coding system also did charge a very evidential disadvantage. This will be the code formed wil l be very long and outsize.The figure beneath will be an example of attribute code system. From this table, we can clearly see that each character actually represent different attitude of the products. For example, if we obtain a product with a code of 32123 that it will represent that this product actually has the characteristics of, boxlike in external shape, center hole in familiar shape, do not have any number of hole, the type of hole will be bell ringer and the gear teeth is actually an external spur.DigitClass of featurePossible value of digits12341External shapeCylindrical without aberranceCylindrical with deviationBoxlike2Internal shapeNoneCenter holeBrind center hole3Number of holes01-23-54Type of holesAxialCrossAxial cross5 vend teethWormInternal spurExternal spur..Hybrid (mixed code)The final category of coding system will be the hybrid (mixed code). This is a kind of code system which most of the company prefer. This system combines the advantage from the Hierarch ical (monocode) and Attribute (polycode) system. People may define this is an advanced system code. The example of this code will be A12131B120. The first alphabet A is actually represents the type of part such as gear or screw. The next 5 digit used to represent the attribute of the part. Then the B in the code above represents another subgroup such as the framework or send off. The hobby digit will be explaining the attitude of the subgroup stated. This clearly shows that this system did rely on the precious digit but also have some digit are independent which are able to show the attribute by itself.Actually there are also some organizations and company use a special kind of hybrid (mixed code) system. They are known as DCLASS or MICLASS code and contain up to 8-12 digits in a particular code. However, there is only some specific organizations such as (The Netherlands physical composition for Applied Scientific Research) are using this special kind of hybrid (mixed) code syst em.Manual visual inspectionManual visual inspection will be one of the methods used to classify part families. Actually, this method is not accurate enough compared to coding and production flow analysis. This method is actually classifying the products based on the physical appearance. Sometimes, there will be some companies or organizations are classifying the products only based on the photograph and arrange them based on their feature. Therefore, we can conclude that this is one of the most outside methods of grouping part families.However, there are actually some organizations are suitable to use this kind of coding system for their group technology. There is one company in United State successfully save their company from being backrub by using this manual visual inspection to classify their group technology. Actually, all of the method will be effective as long as it is suitable for the production of the company.Production flow analysisThe other method to determine the part families will be the production flow analysis. This kind of classification system will mainly focus on the production process. The products that need to be manufactured by the same working process will be classified as a part families and then being processed by using a single kind of machines. The machines that used to manufacture part families are known as cells. Cellular manufacturing is referring to the manufacturing process when the part families are being manufacture by cell machine. The advantage will be this production flow analysis system need less effort compared to coding and classification system.When classifying products by using this system, we need to form a matrix. This matrix actually did bring along some special meaning. This actually is a machine-component map and it is also a M * N matrix where M = number of machines and N = number of parts. The 2 figures below show the production flow analysis. The grouping will be based on the operation process and find the op timum solution for it. For example, there is a duplicate D in production flow analysis. This is because machine D need to produce too many parts. If only single machine to be used, group 1 and group 2 have to be combined but they have too many dissimilar routings,12345678910111213141516171819A11B111C111111D111111111111111E11F1111G11111H1111I11111J11K11 find out above is the component machine chart21111016181263478914151951317H1111D11111(Group1)F1111A11B111E11D(Group 2)1111111111C111111I11111G11111J(Group 3)11K11Figure above is the production flow analysis3.0 Flow Chart in forming group technologyGroup TechnologyAdvantages and disadvantages of group technologyGroup technology will play an important role in the future production plants although now it still does not achieve the widespread application. Using group technology strategy is definitely beneficial to all of us. This strategy is not only beneficial to the company but also beneficial to the citizen or users.The advantages of g roup technology toward the manufacturing process will be the production process can be improved. For example, the part control can become tighter, the physical layout of the machine group can be improved and the ordering tied toward the production also can be improved when group technology is being used. The other advantage will be a more systematic design and redesign can be produced. This will consequently lead to reducing on the planning time of the process and the setup time. The other advantage toward the manufacturing process will be the purchasing cost of the material can be trim due to the materials are purchase in a very large quantity. This can also improve the accuracy of cost estimation of a certain companies or organizations. All these will definitely bring to an improvement toward the company and causes company or organizations to develop faster.The improvement also can be clear seen on the product itself when group technology is being used. We can clearly see the qua lity of the products being improved. This is because the number of completely new design can be reduced and this causes the workers more familiar with the part. This leads to a production of better quality products.The advantage that brings to the customer or users is the cost of the product is reduced when group technology being introduced. This is because the transportation fee to tr