The layout of manufacturing systems has influence on the performances of the system. Although factories produce same product, the layouts of factories may be quite dissimilar. The layout structure of a factory is characterized by the following two fac...
The layout of manufacturing systems has influence on the performances of the system. Although factories produce same product, the layouts of factories may be quite dissimilar. The layout structure of a factory is characterized by the following two factors. The one is different engineering methods and the other is the habit of system design.
The function of body shop is to assemble various parts produced in press shop using welding processes. The body shop in an automotive factory is a typical flow line with assembly, but the layout concept of the line varies among factories. In this thesis, two types of layouts in the body shops, one for layered build and the other for modular build, are compared using simulation study.
This thesis deals with two subjects. The first topic is to compare the performance measures of the two layout structures considering various types of failure distributions. The simulation experiments indicate that the modular build layout is better than the layered build layout with respect to production rate. The effects of various failure distributions on the throughputs are also investigated, and some insights are suggested regarding the layout concept.
The second topic is to investigate the effects of part transfer policies on the performances of the system, which are applied to the sub-lines in the two types of the layout structures of body shop. Two types of transfer policies, one is synchronous transfer policy and the other is asynchronous transfer policy, are considered. The simulation experiments indicate that the production rate of modular build layout is higher than that of layered build layout regardless of transfer policies. However, the asynchronous transfer policy is better than the synchronous policy and the layered build layout is more sensitive than the modular build layout with respect to the transfer policies.