Manufacturing reengineering in a tubular radiator production plant

Abstract

Describes the reengineering of a production line for household heating tubular radiators, assuming as a reference scenario the facility of one of the leading Italian manufacturers. After a preliminary characterization of products and manufacturing process, a thorough analysis of the production system has been carried out in order to highlight current problems and improvement strategies in the light of lean manufacturing concepts. Subsequently, suggests some corrective actions and also assesses their expected effectiveness in economic terms. In particular, improvement possibilities have been found in the areas of internal logistics through streamlining of materials flow and layout modifications, as well as process quality increase. Reengineering activities are especially aimed towards layout optimization mainly by resorting to a U‐shaped cell‐based architecture. Further, the reduction of rework percentage during the assembly phase has been pursued by properly modifying the operations sequence and through integration of a new automated testing station in the production line.