UNIT V

GROUP TECHNOLOGY
 PRODUCTION FLOW ANALYSIS
One of the main advantages of using group
technology is that the machine tools can be
reorganised into cells to follow the operation
sequence closely. This ensures that the parts are
grouped based on the production requirements,
and only those machines that are required for the
group manufacture are in the cell, thereby reducing
the material-handling requirements for the group.
Since all the parts in the group have similar
machining processes, the cutting tools and fixtures
required can be rationalised which reduces the set-
up times for the parts, bringing down the overall
machining cost. The main requirement for this is
that all the parts of a group should have similar
routings. This can be accomplished by a process
called production-flow analysis or PFA
In order to carry out the PFA, it is necessary to collect all the
information related to the parts and their processing to be made
as part of the system.
Steps in PFA
1. Data Collection: The main data required to perform PFA is the
information about the route taken by the part through the shop
to complete all the processing operations. This is normally
present in a sheet called route sheet or process sheet or some
similar name in the industrial engineering (planning)
department. Normally, in this sheet, each processing operation
to be performed is associated with a machine tool. From the
route sheet, the part number and machine routing (operation
sequence) for every part can be obtained. Additional information
that is useful is lot size, time standards, annual demand, etc.,
which could be used to identify the capacity required in terms of
cells and number of machines. A typical route sheet is given in
Table 18.6.
2. Sorting of Process Routing: The data collected during the
first step needs to be grouped in this step so as to achieve
similarity in the process routings. To help with this step, all the
processing operations are coded into numbers or characters
(e.g., lathe–01 or A; mill–02 or B; etc.). Using these codes,
each part is listed as a series of codes representing the
sequence in which these operations are to be carried out.
Then a sorting procedure is applied on these routings such
that parts with identical routes are grouped together. The
actual number of parts in a particular group may vary from
one (unique part) to many.
3. PFA Chart: The route sheets of all the parts are then
organised in the form of a matrix as shown in Fig. 18.7. This
chart is for a total of six parts, all of which need to be
processed on six different machines. This chart is called the
part machine incidence matrix. In this matrix, the entry of ‘1’
represents where the part needs to visit that particular
machine. When no visitation is required, a ‘0’ is placed or for
convenience in reading, it is left blank.
4. Analysis: From the raw part machine incidence matrix,
the columns and rows are rearranged in such a way that
all the ones come into one grouping as shown in the
right-hand side matrix of Table 18.7. Each such block can
be considered as a machine cell (Cell1 = machine 1, 4, 6;
Cell1 = machine 3, 2, 5). This being a hypothetical case,
the cells were easily formed. However, in real life, there
are many problems which need to be properly addressed
by the user. A point that should be noted here is that PFA
utilises the existing parts, process plans and routings
which might have been prepared by different planners at
different times, and as such may not be optimal. It allows
a process layout of the plant to be converted into a more
efficient product layout with the current data. Once the
incidence matrix is organised, there are a number of
methods available for making the groups. A few of these
methods are described below:
Rank-Order Clustering Method