Repetitive Manufacturing

Repetitive manufacturing is typically characterized by:

• Entire production lines are dedicated to a family of products.

• Product families share similar components and routing instructions.

• Products are often manufactured in a continuous process that requires less inventory movement to and from the production line.

• Work center setup and changeover times between related products are minimized.

• Production is defined in units per hour. The time spent at the operational level might or might not be important. Therefore, you must be able to set up line capacity and define routing instructions in units per hour at the line level. The fundamental basis for backscheduling and capacity planning is hours. To view information in units, the system uses a conversion factor defined at the work center level.

• Visual cues, called kanbans, control material movement. Kanbans represent predetermined quantities of components at specified locations on the production line. They are designed to minimize work-in-process inventories.