Journal of Manufacturing Systems

Volume I I/No. 2

BOOK REVIEW

One Piece Flow--Cell Design for 5. Establish pull production and its corresponding supply
Transforming the Production Process system and take measures to prevent missing items.
K. Sekine, author 6. Introduce simple automation methods.
Productivity Press, © 1992 7. Gradually introduce the kanban system.
xxii + 286 pp. The book is divided into two parts--basics and applica-
$75.00 tions. The first chapter explains the concept of one-piece
production. It is quite simple--one does not manufacture
quantities of products according to marketing plans or
The essence of this book is captured by the publisher in scientific forecasts, but only to customer demands. Cus-
his "Message," namely "...why and how to restructure the tomer demands are fed to product assembly divisions that
traditional Ford-like production plant into a one-piece flow pull parts and components from machining (or other pro-
operation based on the demands of the marketplace--not cessing) departments as needed. Supplies are pulled as
the planning department." The why is rather obvious--to needed from material stores. Thus, the kanban (feed me)
be more competitive. The how is to create a new manufac- method is applied at all levels of the production process.
turing system concept that makes it possible to lower Such operation is possible if the pool of customers is stable,
production cost, increase productivity, reduce lead time, even though their orders are not coming necessarily at
and improve quality. In the preface, the author lists the most predetermined times.
essential principles governing the new mode of production: This situation exists not only in Japan, but also in the US
pull production, one-piece flow, and multiprocess handling and other industrialized countries. Such producers are
in U-shaped cells. Henry Ford is credited with inventing primarily the suppliers for original equipment manufactur-
one-piece flow. The idea of kanban, the original concept of ers in the automobile, appliance, heavy equipment, and
just-in-time, is said to have been born when Toyota exec- manufacturing businesses. In the US, there are tens of
utive Taiichi Ohno saw one day in 1954 in an American thousands of such suppliers, probably more than in Japan.
supermarket how shoppers pulled from shelves only the However, it takes more than kanban to be competitive in
items they needed. (Such stores did not exist in Japan at that one-piece manufacturing. In fact, as shown in the list of
time.) However, the third principle requires multi-station seven steps, introduction of kanban is the last step. Follow-
tending and workers skilled in more than one task, ideas ing is a detailed description of the seven steps, as executed
that went against American industrial practice. in Japan, in Part I of the book:
The following is best presented verbatim: Step 1 means that workers must be trained to be able to
" I do not mean to suggest that the process of developing handle more than one process. This makes it possible to
a production system based on (these) principles was reduce the number of workers.
problem-free. To the contrary, many hurdles had to be Step 2 refers to the U-shaped production cells rather than
cleared, such as negotiations with labor unions over the lines. This permits easier access to several workstations by
introduction of multiprocess handling, problems in skills one worker.
training, worker discipline, and so on." Step 3 means that a work cycle is worked out that
Japanese companies found that the road to successful requires a minimum number of workers.
introduction of one-piece flow lay in making process- Step 4 is minimization of the time needed to change tools
building improvements in the factory by using the following and fixtures when going over from one product type to
seven steps: another.
1. Build an environment for multiprocess handling and Step 5 is preparation for kanban methods.
develop worker discipline and training. Step 6 indicates that automation that is simple, inexpen-
2. Build U-shaped cells and devise defect prevention sive, and can speed up the process and make it easier for the
measures. worker is introduced. However, NC equipment is often
3. Establish cycle-time production. Calculate the mini- used.
mum required number of workers and the optimal Step 7 is self explanatory. The system is started up.
work distribution. The first five steps are intended to reduce the number of
4. Make changeover improvements and work toward workers needed and minimize in-process inventory and
zero changeover. process time.

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 Journal of Manufacturing Systems
Volume I 1/No. 2

book review

The technical changes described are not by themselves Handbook of Special Metal
revolutionary. Process machines and assembly stations can Pressworking Machines and Automated Systems
be easily rearranged in lines, circles, U-patterns, and their I.Z. Mansurov and I.M. Podrabinnik, authors
combinations. The U-pattern is the best because of easiest ©1990
worker access. Note that one of the rationalization recom- 340 pp.
mendations does away with sitting while working, so that $6.75
moves from one station to the other take less time. Motion
analyses are conducted to simplify work and shorten its
time. Material waste is tracked and eliminated wherever Special metal pressworking machines are intended for
possible. specific types of components and are built to individual
American readers will be pleased to find Frank Gil- orders. This handbook describes in considerable detail over
breth's study on bricklaying presented as the pioneering 200 such machines including several automated systems
effort in the elimination of waste motions in manual labor. comprised of presses and auxiliary equipment. Each of the
Part II of the book presents four detailed case studies of eight chapters of the book describe one category of equip-
conversion to one-piece production. The first is from a ment--shearing, sheet metal forming, straightening, cold
plastics products manufacturing company where the bottle- pressing, hot press and roll forging, pressing non-metallic
neck problem (the long time of changeover from one color materials, pressing powders, and scrap compacting. Among
of extruded plastic to another) was reduced after 6 months the more unusual machines are a 4-crank sheet metal press
of intensive research and experimentation from 100 minutes for stamping truck frames up to 12 meters long, exerting up
to only 18 minutes. to 63,000 kN force, a 100,000 kN hydraulic press of the
The second case will be interesting for readers of this rubber diaphragm type, a hydrodynamic press with rubber
Journal. It concerns a manufacturer of small electric motors diaphragm over which hydraulic pressure is generated by an
of 3000 types (including gearmotors) in a total of 50,000 impacting plunger (63,000 kN force), electrohydraulic
models. The total employment is 850 persons; the products shock wave forming units of up to 40 kJ energy, magnetic
are sold to 5000 customers in Japan and abroad. In 1977, forming units of up to 80kJ energy, a series of automated
the company received complaints from its bank about its hot forging systems with crank presses of 10,000 to 63,000
large inventory--two months of output. The bank was kN force, and presses for the making of synthetic diamonds,
concerned about the financial health of the company. After cubic boron nitride and other super hard materials.
thorough changeover to one-piece production that took five This handbook is well illustrated and is of interest to
years to complete, the inventory was reduced to ten days of manufacturing engineers engaged in metal forming.
output. The amazed banker wanted to know the secret
through which this was achieved. Another important gain
was in cost of direct labor, and reduced in-process defects
(from 1.2% to 0.1%).
Industrial Robotics
The third case company is a small manufacturer of
B. Hodges and P. Hallam, authors
women's apparel. Its effort to introduce one-piece produc-
Heinemann Newnes, ©1990
tion resulted in shortening the order-to-delivery time from
xi + 193 pp.
20 days average to only 9.
$32.95
The last case is an electronics company that manufactur-
ers printed circuit boards. Here the main effort and success
was in improvements in the soldering line. After over 30 years of existence, industrial robots are no
Although cases of similar transformations are known longer a novelty. A large number of books have been
also in the US (Harley-Davidson comes to mind), thousands published about them, and they fall mostly into two
of companies are still operating in the old mode. Therefore, categories--detailed works with considerable, sometimes
the book is essential reading for every manufacturing overwhelming theoretical content, and purely descriptive.
manager and engineer. Engineers and engineering students who do not plan to
become robot designers and managers with technical inter-

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