This book is about the engineering of assembly operations through the following:

1. Characterizing the demand in terms of volume by product and product family, component consumption, seasonal variability and life cycle.

2. Matching the physical structure of the shop floor to the demand with the goal of approaching takt-driven production as closely as possible.

3. Working out the details of assembly tasks station by station, including station sizing, tooling, fixturing, operator instructions, part presentation, conveyance between stations, and the geometry of assembly lines as a whole.

4. Incorporating mistake-proofing, successive inspection, and test operations for quality assurance.

It is about the technical content of the work done in lean manufacturing to improve existing assembly facilities or design new ones. Its aim is to provide factory personnel engaged in such efforts with ideas, solutions, and analytical tools to assess their relevance in a wide range of applications. Examples are drawn from industries including not only automotive but also aerospace, electronics, household appliances and personal products.

They include high-volume-low-mix, low-volume-high-mix, and mass customization applications.

The techniques described are intended to be used by the actual engineers and managers working in factories today. The readers are assumed to have access to PCs with spreadsheet and graphics software, digital cameras, and video cameras. On the other hand, they are not assumed to have the inclination or the time to become proficient in graduate school level mathematics.

This book differs from most others about lean manufacturing is that it is not organized around concepts like standard...