Impact of manufactured housing component assembly redesign on facility layout and production process

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the impact of the component assemblies redesign on the material handling costs associated with the facility layout and also, on the productivity of the assembly process. Component assemblies are the sub‐assemblies that are incorporated into the manufactured house as it progresses on the assembly line.

Design/methodology/approach

Floor assembly is used as an example to demonstrate the impact of the component assembly redesign process. A step‐by‐step process of assembling a floor in the case study factory is described and changes to the process are proposed. The existing and redesigned floor assemblies are analyzed using the factory layout analysis models and the production simulation models.

Findings

The proposed redesign resulted in a small savings of less than 1 per cent in the material handling costs and a substantial savings of around 20 per cent in the production time.

Research limitations/implications

The work described in this paper is based on the existing floor assembly process in a case study factory. Due to the practical limitations, material handling routes and production activities associated with the redesigned assemblies were estimated. The results from this research show that redesign of component assemblies can provide potential avenues of savings for the manufactured housing industry. Such analysis can be performed for any component assembly individually or in combination with other assemblies in order to realize potential savings with relatively minor changes.

Originality/value

Production‐related research in manufactured housing has traditionally focused on either improving the facility layout or the assembly line process but not the combined impact of these two aspects. This paper presents a possible approach to investigating the combined impact by analyzing the impact of redesigned floor assembly.

Citation

Sabharwal, A., Syal, M. and Hastak, M. (2009), "Impact of manufactured housing component assembly redesign on facility layout and production process", Construction Innovation, Vol. 9 No. 1, pp. 58-71. https://doi.org/10.1108/14714170910931543