Topic 1

1. a2. b3. b4. b5. a

Topic 2

1. c2. c3. a4. c5. b6. b7. c8. c9. d10. c11. c12. a13. c14. c15. b16. c17. c18. d

Topic 3

1. b2. b3. b4. c5. a6. a7. c8. a9. b10. b11. a12. b13. a14. b15. d

Topic 4

1. a2. b3. a4. c

Topic 5

1. b2. b3. a4. a5. b6. c

Topic 1: Manufacturing Systems

A manufacturing system is a transformation system that transforms raw material into finished products that have value in the market place. The functions in a manufacturing system are product design, manufacturing planning, manufacturing control, business, administration, production and testing. There are 3 basic types of production namely, job shop production, batch production and mass production. There are 4 type of plant layout namely, fixed position layout, process-based layout, product-flow layout and flexible manufacturing systems layout. The USA principle can be applied in an automation project to understand, simplify and automate the process.

Topic 2: Manufacturing Concepts and Performance Indicators

Manufacturing lead time (MLT) is the total time required to process a product through the plant. Production rate of a manufacturing process is the maximum output per unit time. Plant capacity is the maximum rate of output that the plant is able to produce under a given set of operating conditions over a given period of time. Plant utilization rate refers to the ratio between the actual output of a plant and its capacity. Work-In-Progress (WIP) refers to the amount of product located in the plant that is either being process or is waiting between processing operations. The magnitude of WIP can be measured by the WIP ratio and TIP ratio.

Topic 3: Manufacturing Economics

Direct costs are costs of material and labour that are easily measured and allocated to a specific operation, product or project. Indirect costs are costs that are related to operations and products. They include material handing, work scheduling and supervision. Overhead costs consist of all the costs during manufacturing other than direct material and labour costs. The 3 basic concepts of time value of money are future value, single sum present value and uniform series present worth. Standard costing method refers to the standardization rates to quantities for material, labour and overhead for a job. Break-even analysis assesses the effect of changes in manufacturing systems on cost, revenues and profits. Unit cost of production decreases when batch sizes increases. Cost of equipment is the sum of capital and operating cost.

Topic 4: Process-based Facility Layout

Correct selection of plant layout, high quality system design and implementation process are strategies to design an efficient manufacturing system. In process-based layout, the consideration is generally associated with versatile operations that must provide non-standard products. The advantages of process-based layout are flexibility, non-duplication, expertise and high variety of products. The disadvantages are lower material handing efficiency, complications in PPC and low productivity compared to flow-line layout. The 3 techniques for process-based layout are dominated flow pattern, directly specified closeness preferences and Cost-Volume-Distance (CVD) Model.

Topic 5: Flow-Lines and Assembly Systems

The components of flow-lines include work transport, breakdown buffers, variation cycle times between workstations buffers, control functions and automation for machining operations. The advantages of flow-line layout are reduction in material handling, lower MLT, lower WIP, lower tooling cost, high manufacturing efficiency, simplified and faster worker training. The disadvantages are large investment, lower adaptation flexibility, work monotony, performance dependency and production rate determined by slowest workstation in flow line. Precedence diagram, largest-candidate rule and the Kilbridge and Wester’s method are used to balanced line problem. The 2 breakdown analysis techniques are upper bound approach and lower bound approach. Storage buffers can be used to increase line efficiency. Thus when one of the workstations breaks down, the buffer prevents other workstations from being immediately affected.

Topic 6: Cellular Manufacturing

Group technology is an effective technique in solving many problems faced in discrete batch manufacturing. The 3 general techniques of group technology are visual inspection, production flow analysis and classification and coding systems. Visual inspection being the cheapest is suitable for small company having smaller number of parts. Production flow analysis uses the manufacturing sequence as a basis for grouping parts into families. Classification and coding is the most-consuming and complicated methods. The classification is categories into design, manufacturing and a combination of design and manufacturing attributes. Cellular manufacturing systems (CMS) is a relatively new layout that combines the flexibility of workshop layout and the efficiency of flowline layout. The 2 methods of cell formation based on production flow analysis are visual inspection and single linkage cluster analysis. The advantages of CMS is to reduced setup times, reduced WIP, higher equipment utilization, simplified shopfloor control and improved teamwork.

Topic 7: Scheduling and JIT Manufacturing

Objectives of scheduling and control are to meet customer delivery dates and minimize costs. The planning and cost estimation is done on route sheet or operations sheet. Scheduling consists of 2 tasks, loading and sequencing. JIT concept originates from Toyota aims to reduce costs by eliminating wastages, achieve product quality, creating high adaptive worksites and organizing work sites based on teamwork. The JIT concept are divided into 3 groups, namely people involvement, total quality management and JIT flow. Benefits of JIT removed functional boundaries within an organization. Barriers of JIT includes frequent changes in production planning, inaccurate forecasting, poor equipment, lack of expertise and cooperation.

Topic 8: Lean Production and Agile Manufacturing

Trends in manufacturing based on JIT product, uses a wide range of computerized and automation in manufacturing to reduce product life cycles. Lean production strives for perfect first-time quality and continuous improvement. Agile manufacturing focus on managing agility versus mass production. Social and economic impacts is counteract by retraining and educating labours to meet higher efficient job.