The big idea: To design a production system you first have to know what the product is made of and how it goes together.
Deconstruct it, part by part
Material
For every part, its material.
Process
Its process.
Joint
How it joins to the next part.
Reason
Why each of those was chosen.
One product, part by part, with material, process and joint for each.
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| Column | What to write | What it tells you about the production system |
|---|---|---|
| Part | Its name and its function in the product | How many parts there are — which is the single best measure of how long assembly takes |
| Material | The specific grade, not just "plastic" | Which processes are available, and whether the part can be recycled with its neighbours |
| Process | How it was made, and whether it was bought in | Which stages happen in this factory and which are somebody else's problem |
| Joined by | Screw, clip, adhesive, weld, press fit | The assembly sequence, the tools needed at each station, and whether the product can ever come apart |
Bought-in parts are a finding, not a gap: A motor, a bearing, a fastener and a circuit board are almost always bought in.
Saying so is a real observation about the production system: those parts arrive as stock, need a supplier and a lead time, and are inspected rather than made.
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Designing the assembly
Put the parts in assembly order
Which part must go in before which? That order is the line, and a part that has to go in first but is delivered last is a planning problem.
Group the work into stations
Each station should take about the same time, or the slowest one sets the rate of the whole line and everybody else waits.
Decide what each station needs
A jig to hold the part square, the right screwdriver, a torque setting, a gauge to check the previous station's work.
Put the test where the fault is cheapest to fix
Testing a circuit board before it is screwed inside a sealed enclosure costs minutes; testing it afterwards costs the whole product.
Line balancing is the usual failure: If one station takes 90 seconds and the others take 30, the line produces one unit every 90 seconds and three quarters of the labour is standing still.
Splitting that station in two, or moving part of its work elsewhere, can nearly triple the output with no new equipment at all.
How this is tested — deconstructing multi-component products to determine how they were made. It comes up two ways:
Paper 1 — multiple choice
- Identify the process used for a labelled component.
- Choose the assembly order for a described product.
Paper 2 — analysing a product
- Deconstruct a named product and analyse how it was made.
- Design an assembly sequence and explain the station grouping.
The trap: Listing parts. The marks are for the material, the process, the joint and the reason — and for what the parts count and the joints reveal about the production system.
A cordless kettle has a moulded body, a stainless element plate, a thermostat, a switch and a moulded lid. Analyse how it was made and how it would be assembled.
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