COMPUTER
10/6/2017
INTEGRATED
MANUFACTURING
ASSIGNMENT-2
GROUP TECHNOLOGY, INDUSTRY
APPLICATIONS WITH ADVANTAGES
Asfandyar
REGN: 206213
DME-17 SMME
GROUP TECHNOLOGY
IMPORTANCE:
Group technology is drawing increasing interest from manufacturers because of its many
applications for boosting productivity. GT is an approach to manufacturing that seeks to
maximize production efficiencies by grouping similar and recurring problems or tasks. Through
a careful examination of the many applications of GT, the authors show how it saves time,
avoids duplication, and facilitates easy and timely information retrieval and use. An important
part of GT is the use of a code that—like a library reference system—serves as an index to
characteristics in manufacturing, engineering, purchasing, resource planning, and sales to
improve productivity in each of these areas.
Introducing a new part into manufacturing can cost from $1,300 to $12,000, including expenses
for design, planning and control, and tools and fixtures.1Clearly, if a company can reduce the
number of new parts it needs, it would realize large cost savings. Consider a company that
typically releases 2,000 new parts per year. If the company could substitute existing parts for
only 10% of these new parts, it could reap an annual saving ranging from a relatively
modest $260,000 to a quite substantial $2.4 million. But this saving hinges on one critical factor:
the identification of parts that can be used with or without modification to meet the designer’s
need. A “group technology” manufacturing data base offers great assistance in this identification
process.
Group technology (GT) is a concept that currently is attracting a lot of attention from the
manufacturing community. The essence of GT is to capitalize on similarities in recurring tasks in
three ways:
By performing similar activities together, thereby avoiding wasteful time in changing
from one unrelated activity to the next.
By standardizing closely related activities, thereby focusing only on distinct differences
and avoiding unnecessary duplication of effort.
By efficiently storing and retrieving information related to recurring problems, thereby
reducing the search time for the information and eliminating the need to solve the
problem again.
GT offers a number of ways to improve productivity, according to studies of companies in batch
manufacturing. One senior executive in the agriculture machinery business told us, “The
fundamental reason for our adoption of GT was to improve cost and quality through reduction of
design proliferation, response time, and work-in-process inventories through standardization and
simplification of manufacturing planning and through creation of more efficient plant layouts.”
Over the last two years, this company has saved more than $9 million through GT. When 20 U.S.
manufacturers using GT were surveyed, 17 of them indicated that the benefits of implementing
GT equaled or exceeded their expectations.2
The management of manufacturing technologies represents a vital component in the
competitiveness of U.S. industry, one that should play a more important role in the formulation
of strategic plans.3 For this to happen, general management must become more familiar with
emerging and promising technologies. In this article we discuss several such technologies, all
tied together by group technology, and identify their wide-reaching applications to all areas of
business operations. We describe the potential benefits that can be achieved as well as common
implementation problems.
APPLICATION CONSIDERATIONS IN GROUP TECHNOLOGY
Applications of Group Technology
In our introduction to this chapter, we defined group technology as a "manufacturing
philosophy." GT is not a particular technique, although various tools and techniques, such as
parts classification and coding and production flow analysis, have been developed to help
implement it. The group technology philosophy can be applied in a number of areas, our
discussion focuses on the two main areas of manufacturing and product design.
Manufacturing Applications. The most common applications of GT are in manufacturing. And
the most common application III manufacturing involves the formation of cells of one kind or
another, not all companies rearrange machines to form cells. There are three ways in which
group technology principles can be applied in manufacturing.
Informal scheduling and routing of similar parts through selected machines. This approach
achieves setup advantages. but no formal part families are defined, and no physical
rearrangement of equipment is undertaken.
Virtual machine cell. This approach involves the creation of part families and dedication of
equipment to the manufacture of these part families, but without the physical rearrangement of
machines into formal cells. The machines in the virtual cell remain in their original locations in
the factory. Use of virtual cells seems to facilitate the sharing of machines with other virtual cells
producing other part families [25J.
Formal machine cells. This is the conventional GT approach in which a group of dissimilar
machines are physically relocated into a cell that is dedicated to the production of one or a
limited set of parts families (Section 15.4.2). The machines in a formal machine cell are located
in close proximity to minimize part handling, throughput name. setup time, and work-in-process.
Other GT applications in manufacturing include process planning (Chapter 25), family tooling,
and numerical control (NC) part programs. Process planning of new parts can be facilitated
through the identification of part families. The new part is associated with an existing part
family. and generation of the process plan for the new part follows the routing of the other
members of the part family. This is done in a formalized way through the use of parts
classification and coding. The approach is discussed in the context of auto mated process
planning.
In the ideal, all members of the same part family require similar setups, tooling, and fixturing.
This generally results in a reduction in the amount of tooling and fixturing needed Instead of
determining a special tool kit for each part, a tool kit is developed for each part family. The
concept of a modular fixture can often be exploited, in which a common base fixture is designed
and adaptations are made to switch between different parts in the family
A similar approach can be applied in NC part programming. Called parametric
programming. [28], it involves the preparation of a common NC program that covers the entire
part family. The program is then adapted for individual members of the family by inserting
dimensions and other parameters applicable to the particular part. Parametric programming
reduces both programming time and setup time.
Product Design Applications. The application of group technology in product design is found
principally in the use of design retrieval systems that reduce part proliferation in the firm. It has
been estimated that a company's cost to release a new part design ranges between $2000 and
$12.000 . In a survey of industry reported in, it was concluded that in about 20% of new part
situations, an existing part design could be used. In about 4(J% of the cases, an existing part
design could be used with modifications, The remaining cases required new part designs. If the
cost savings for a company generating 1000 new part designs per year were 75% when an
existing part design could be used (assuming that there would still be some cost oftime
associated with the new part for engineering analysis and design retrieval) and 50% when an
existing design could be modified, then the total annual savings to the company would lie
between $700,000 and $4,200,000, or 35% of the company's total design expense due to part
releases. The kinds of design savings described here require an efficient design retrieval
procedure. Most part design retrieval procedures lin: based on parts classification and coding
systems.
Other design applications of group technology involve simplification and standardization of
design parameters, such as tolerances inside radii on corners, chamfer sizes on outside edges,
hole sizes, thread sizes, and so forth. These measures simplify design procedures and reduce part
proliferation. Design standardization also pays dividends in manufacturing by reducing the
required number of distinct lathe tool nose radii, drill sizes, and fastener sizes. There is also a
benefit in terms of reducing the amount of data and information that the company must deal
with. Fewer part designs, design attributes, tools, fasteners, and so on mean fewer and simpler
design documents, process plans, and other data records.
BENEFITS OF GROUP TECHNOLOGY
Reductions in throughput time
Set-up time
Overdue orders
Production floor space
Raw material stocks
In-process inventory
Capital expenditures
Tooling costs
Engineering time and costs
New parts design
New shop drawings
Total number of drawings
Easier to justify automation
Standardization in design
Data retrieval
Easier, more standardized process plans
Increases in quality
