Completely synchronous manufacturing for automotive assembly — some lessons learned

The concepts of synchronous manufacturing look deceptively simple on paper. It appears obvious on the surface that when manufacturing operations are dependent upon one another, then the slowest operation will determine the pace of the combined operations.

Theory is one thing. Learning to really get a complex manufacturing and assembly system to work smoothly takes real patience.

One of the teaching tools was computer simulation with animation to demonstrate the concepts of synchronous manufacturing.

This paper focuses on 3 models developed using this simulation/animation tool.