PFAST: Software for Part Family Formation and Production Flow Analysis for

Implementing JobshopLean (JSLEAN) Manufacturing in Custom Forge Shops

Shahrukh A. Irani and Heng Huang
Department of Industrial, Welding and Systems Engineering
The Ohio State University
Columbus, OH 43210

Role of Facility Layout in Lean Manufacturing
Lean Manufacturing is a manufacturing philosophy that
shortens the lead time between the receipt of a customer
order and the shipment of that order to the customer by
eliminating waste. Anytime that an order is delayed, the
cost of one or more of the Seven Types of Wastes –
overproduction, queuing, transportation (or material
handling) time, inventory (raw material, WIP and finished
goods), unnecessary motions and travel by operators to
perform non-standardized work, defective (or reworked)
products and underutilized workforce skills – gets added
to the cost of producing the order and prevents on-time
delivery of the order to the customer. Empirical evidence
indicates that, in any manufacturing facility, typically
95% of the production lead time of an order is comprised
of only two of the Seven Types of Wastes – Queuing at
each workcenter and Transportation between workcenters
– which significantly reduce the velocity of material flows
and increase WIP in a facility. These dominant wastes
are the result of an incorrect and inefficient facility layout.
Hybrid Cellular Layouts for Jobshops
Like all other jobshops, custom forge shops that pursue
military/government contracts from the DLA (Defense
Logistics Agency) and DOD (Department Of Defense),
are complex high-variety low-volume manufacturing
facilities where the changes in product mix, volume,
customer base, workforce skills, process technology, etc.
are significant. A complete reorganization of a typical
jobshop into a Cellular Layout may be ill-advised due to
the inherent inflexibility of manufacturing cells. Cells
cannot adapt to changes in product mix, demand volumes,
capacity requirements and production schedules.
Therefore, unlike the traditional manufacturing cells in a
Cellular Layout, Hybrid Cellular Layouts provide an
effective foundation for jobshops to configure their
facility layouts for flexibility plus waste-free material
flow. These layouts integrate the flexibility of a Process
Layout with the manufacturing focus of a Cellular Layout
to achieve waste-free and high-velocity flows of orders in
any Make-To-Order (MTO) facility.
Software for Design of Hyrbid Cellular Layouts
PFAST (Production Flow Analysis and Simplification
Toolkit)1 is a software package that has automated the
manual methods of Production Flow Analysis (PFA).
PFAST has been used successfully to design flexible
facility layouts that provide a strong foundation for
implementing Lean Manufacturing in machining, pipe
fabrication, forging, woodworking, cable manufacturing,
electronic assembly and welding jobshops.
Production Flow Analysis (PFA) is implemented in four
stages to design a facility layout – Factory Flow Analysis
(FFA), Group Analysis (GA), Line Analysis (LA) and
Tooling Analysis (TA). Each stage in PFA seeks to
eliminate delays in production flows and operational
wastes in a progressively smaller area of the facility. In
Factory Flow Analysis (FFA) (Figure 1), the flows
between shops (or buildings) on the factory site are
evaluated to eliminate wastes due to transportation,
communication delays, use of large containers to store
WIP and use of bulk-handling material handling
equipment to move the large containers over large
distances. In Group Analysis (GA) (Figure 2), the flows
between machines in each shop within the factory are
evaluated to implement manufacturing cells to produce
families of parts with identical (or similar) routings. In
Line Analysis (LA) (Figure 3), the flows between
machines in each cell are evaluated. A layout for the cell
is designed for efficient inter-machine material handling,
multi-machine tending by individual operators and
minimum wasted motions by operators. In Tooling
Analysis (TA) (Table 1), the flows at each machine in a
cell are evaluated to optimize the workstation layout for
ease of machine operation and rapid execution of setup
activities, such as machine loading/unloading, tool
changes, fixture changes, parts inspection and cleanup.
Further Reading
Interested individuals can obtain a copy of the book
“Hybrid Cellular Layouts: New Ideas for Design of
Flexible and Lean Layouts for Jobshops” by contacting
the first author2.
1
For further information on PFAST, please visit
http://www-iwse.eng.ohio-
state.edu/ISEFaculty/home.html and click on “Irani,
Shahrukh” to access the literature under “Research:
Future Manufacturing and Production Facilities”.
2
Email: irani.4@osu.edu Phone: (614) 688-4685
 M A T E R IA L

28

16 2
15
1

27 3
53 1 3
1
1
1 24
3 1
126

84 151 3
4

8
1
1 12 26
3 D EPARTM ENTS
9 27 1 = BLANKS
5 45 1 2 = SHEET M ETAL W O RK
3 3 = FO RG E
1 4 = W E L D IN G D E P T
2 5 = M A C H IN E S H O P
6 = AS SE M B LY
9 = O U T S ID E F IR M S

F IN IS H E D
6
PRODUCT

M A T E R IA L S 1 M A T E R IA L S 1

5 4 3 2 5 3 & 4 2

6 6

F IN IS H E D F IN IS H E D
PRODUCT PRO DUCT

Figure 1 Factory Flow Analysis

(Source: Burbidge, J. L.1971, April/May. Production Flow Analysis. The Production Engineer, 139-152)
 PART/PRODUCT
K L L M M L M M E E E E E K E E K E M K M M M K E E E K K M E
4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 1 1 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 7 4 3 4 4 6 1
8 8 8 4 7 8 8 4 1 8 4 2 2 7 7 8 4 3 8 4 5 5 8 4 3 6 3 5 3 1 8
2 3 2 2 6 3 1 2 7 5 2 2 2 6 7 5 5 4 2 2 6 6 3 0 9 3 2 1 5 5 6
5 8 6 7 9 8 9 7 9 9 6 0 8 9 8 8 9 9 6 7 9 9 8 9 2 6 9 9 9 9 9
1 8 7 6 3 8 5 6 5 6 7 4 8 7 2 6 6 4 5 6 1 1 6 8 4 5 9 0 2 4
A B E F M C D D C D B H A

M DMT(3) X X X X X X X X X X
A DM(3) X X X X X X X X X X X X X
C
H PG X X X X X X
I DXY(3) X X X X X X X X
N P&GR X
E
/ PGR X X
W PGH
O
R
K PGG X X X
S P&G X X X X X X X X X X X X X
T RP X
A
T PGB X X X X X X
I W&P X X X X X
O
WG3 X
N
COMPONENT – MACHINE CHART. INITIAL RECORD. FORGE.

PART/PRODUCT
L K M E K L E K K K M M M E E E E E M K L M M M K E E E E E M
4 3 4 3 4 4 7 3 4 4 6 4 4 3 1 1 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 1 3 4 4
8 4 8 3 4 8 3 4 5 3 1 8 4 4 2 8 1 8 8 8 8 5 5 4 7 7 6 2 3 8 7
2 5 2 4 2 3 9 0 1 5 5 1 2 2 2 6 7 5 3 2 3 6 6 2 6 7 3 2 2 5 6
6 9 6 9 7 8 2 9 9 9 9 9 7 6 0 9 9 9 8 5 8 9 9 7 9 8 6 8 9 8 9
7 6 5 4 6 8 8 9 0 2 5 6 7 4 4 5 6 6 1 8 1 1 6 7 2 4 8 5 6 3
B D C M A C D H A D B E F

PG X X X X X X
DM 3/1 X X X X
GROUP-1

M DXY 3/1 X X
A RP X
C FAMILY - 1
H
P&G X X X X X X X X X X X X ONE “EXCEPTION” X
I
N DMT 3/2 X X X X X X
E DM 3/2 X X X X X X
/
W DXY 3/2 X X X X X X
GROUP-2

O W&P X X X X X
R WG3 X
K
FAMILY - 2
S
T PGG X X X
A PGB X X X X X X
GROUP-3

T
I PGR X X
O DMT 3/3 X X X X
N DM 3/3 X X X
P&GR X
FAMILY –3
COMPONENT – MACHINE CHART. AFTER FINDING FAMILIES AND GROUPS

Figure 2 Group Analysis

(Source: Burbidge, J. L.1971, April/May. Production Flow Analysis. The Production Engineer, 139-152)
 M A T E R IA L

65 7
1

1 2 3 2
HS4 M O HS
1
2 6
11
3 3 2 4

5 7 6 4
M V D H M H DS

1 1
1

8
SA

41 2 5 4 4 16 2

G R O U P F L O W N E T W O R K D IA G R A M - G R O U P 2

M A T E R IA L S

72

1
HS4

17 6 4 3

4 2 6 1 7 1 5
42
DH M H D S M V
1 2
8
15
5
8
SA

72

S IM P L IF IE D G R O U P F L O W N E T W O R K - G R O U P 2

Figure 3 Line Analysis (Source: Burbidge, J. L.1971, April/May. Production Flow Analysis. The Production Engineer, 139-152)

Table 1 Tooling Analysis (Source: Gallagher, C. C. & Knight, W. A. (1973), Group Technology, London, UK: Butterworths)

Digit 1 Digit 2 Digit 3 Digit 4 Digit 5 Digit 6 Digit 7 Digit 8

Dimension Matching with
Method 3 Jaw chuck Surface
of Special Material accurac
Bore Boring tool Quadruple single
holding Ove Dw L attachment y
dia. carrier point tool holder
rall s
φ
3 Jaw rough
L/Dw<0. GG-
0 chuck < 40 w/o w/o w/o turned 0
1 formed
outer ∇
Boring,
3 Jaw 41… counter- fine
42 L/Dw<0. Axial Uniform cutting, ST-
1 chuck 160 … sinking, turned 1
φ 5 copying w/o accuracy. formed
inner 100 reaming, ∇∇
tapping.
Uniform cut, or
101 L/Dw up staggered cut,
4 Jaw 60 Face Only outer NE-
2 250 … to limit with accuracy, outer fit 2
chuck φ copying turning.
simple boring up
formed
200 of chuck
to 48 φ .
Outer shaping,
301 chamfering, inner fit
Spring 80 Shafts< 2 Axis GG-cut
3 315 … 1 with 2 inserting with (+ 3
collet φ 500 copying off
400 form tool, not outer)
copying.
Conical Shaping, etc. position
Mandre 401 Shafts Surface
80 with form tool; ST-cut al
4 l or 400 … 500… 3 with 4 4
φ tapering± 1 with 3; not off accurac
arbor 500 1000
2° copying. y
Inner shaping
Shaping, inserting
501 inserting
Jig or 125 Shafts chamfering with NE-cut polishin
5 500 … Steep cone chamfering; 5
fixture φ 1m…2m form tool; off g
1000 with 3;
copying.
copying.
 Betwee Short Inner & outer
> Shafts knurling
6 n thread at the same 5 with 2 & 1 or 3 GG-bar 6
1000 2m…5m , etc.
centers milling time
Threading
Chuck- Shafts 6 with back tool
7 with lead ST-bar 7
center > 5m holder
screw
Steadie Thread with
8 NE-bar 8
s copying
Eccentr Automatic cycle
Unround non-
9 ic (face with 4th & 5th 9
copying metal
plate) digits