Raising the performance of a company by creating an appropriately designed production system.
Miller, Antonin ; Srajer, Vladimir
1. INTRODUCTION
If we want a successful company that is resistant to negative
surrounding influences which may endanger its existence, it is necessary
to make products of sufficient quality in a short delivery time and with
the minimum cost. We can say that cost, quality and delivery time are
the basic parameters of a production system and it is very important to
influence these parameters positively. This can be achieved by
appropriate composition of the production system. The composition of the
production process stems from the needs derived from the design of the
production system. The production process is composed of operations. We
can divide these operations into two basic groups: technological and
non-technological (Horvath et al., 2009).
* Technological operations--these are operations that are carried
out by mechanical or human labour, including the preparation of
production and other activities, without which we cannot obtain the
final effects from the sale of the product.
* Non-technological operations--also called 'logistic
operations', such as moving, control, storage etc. These operations
do not increase the value created for the customer, but in the context
of the production process, they support the efficiency of technological
operations.
Technological operations are determined by the product
construction, technological process, then by production technologies,
and can be influenced by the technical park (machinery and equipment)
and other resources. If we want to affect these operations it is
necessary to include them in the creation of the technological
processes, i.e. it may be necessary to change the design of the products
(Basl et al., 2007).
Non-technological operations are especially controllable by
production site layout. The production site layout is determined mainly
by the following indicators: intensity of material flow and, primarily,
transport performance. These indicators of spatial arrangement can only
be affected by different types of optimization methods to a certain
extent. This is given by the conditions of production technology and
production resources (machinery) (Phillips, 1997).
Put simply, we can say that if we want to establish an efficient
production system, we have to set the technological and
non-technological operations in order to respect the important links
between products, processes of production and the manufacturing system.
These three entities are strongly connected and are essential for the
design of the system (Eder et al., 2007).
2. BASIC PROCEDURE FOR DESIGNING PRODUCTION SYSTEMS
The usual way of designing a production system is based on a
unidirectional flow of information. Firstly, product design is worked on
to reflect customer requirements. Subsequently, the technological
process of production (production processes) is worked on. Based on
these previous steps, suitable resources are chosen for their production
and deployment in production (Burda et al., 1991) (Fig. 1).
The first step is to design a product that is dictated, as a rule,
by the customer's requirements. This deals with the shape, size,
weight and type of material that the product will be manufactured from,
and its functional properties. The next step is to draft the production
process; to establish the manufacturing processes depending on the
characteristics of the product. The last step is the compilation of a
system, depending on the process of production and machinery, whose main
distinguishing feature is layout.
A disadvantage of this classical method of assembling (drawing up)
the production system is that there is only a unidirectional flow of
information. There is therefore a "direct" compilation of the
production system.
This has resulted in the emergence of certain restrictions which
must be considered when creating the layout. The result is the emergence
of complications or origin of unclear transport routes. These
restrictions have a negative impact on the operational characteristics
of the production system.
Based on the analysis of current approaches to design of the
production systems, we found that these procedures do not achieve highly
efficient operation of the production system. The aim of the research is
to find a method which increases the efficiency of operating
characteristics of the proposed production system.
The following chapter describes the concept of our research.
[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]
3. MODIFIED CONCEPT OF RESOLUTION OF PRODUCTION SYSTEM
One way of ensuring the establishment of a higher quality
production system is the implementation of feedback among all its
components. This feedback should ensure the possibility of an integrated
resolution of product design, production process and production system
and consultations within the framework of the whole development stage
(Fig. 2).
* Product designer: Based on submitter's requirements, the
constructor drafts the product design, its dimensions, shape and
technical properties, chooses manufacturing materials, etc.
* Product: We have a product that corresponds to customer
requirements in terms of its dimensions, shape and technical properties
and material.
* Process designer: Marks the work position. He/she continues the
work of the technologist who created the technological process necessary
for making product. His/her task is to complete the technological
process with all non-technological operations and complete the
production process.
* Process: We have completely designed the production process for
the product.
* System designer: marks the work position of the 'production
system designer' who put together the production system based on
the designed production process of the product.
* Production system: includes components: human resources,
production machines, manipulation technology, buildings, including their
interconnections.
* Layout: design of site layout of the production system.
[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]
The information flow marked with the solid line corresponds with
the classic production system concept for one-way information flow. The
Constructor object at the top has a decisive influence on the whole
production system, and other objects in the system are subordinate. The
object at the top of the hierarchy is called the 'master'; the
other objects are called 'slaves'.
The dashed line marks the information flow that constitute
so-called parallel feedback. This feedback enables reactions from
objects placed lower in this diagram, turns the point of view into the
opposite direction, and puts these objects into the 'master'
position.
4. CONCLUSION
The main contribution of feedback is the possibility of making
changes to the production system. After evaluating the layout, we can
find a more appropriate resolution for a certain situation, for example
by using another production technology that should influence the
production process in a particular way. Of course, the change to the
production process may cause modifications to the product. Now we have
to answer the question: Does the product correspond to the
submitter's requirements? If it does, it is possible to implement
the modified production system. If it does not, we have to make other
changes and we have to repeat the process of production system design
until we find the optimal version corresponding to the requirements.
In the future, we would like to develop this approach to production
system design in more detail and to try to apply it in practice.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This paper was created with the subsidy of the project 402/08/H051
under the Grant Academy of the Czech Republic. The name of this project
is "Optimization of multidisciplinary design and modelling of
virtual firm's production systems".
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