Lean Assembly: The Nuts and Bolts of Making Assembly Operations Flow

Citation

Rigelsford, J. (2004), "Lean Assembly: The Nuts and Bolts of Making Assembly Operations Flow", Assembly Automation, Vol. 24 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2004.03324aae.003

Lean Assembly: The Nuts and Bolts of Making Assembly Operations Flow

Lean Assembly: The Nuts and Bolts of Making Assembly Operations Flow

Keywords: Assembly, Lead production

M. BaudinProductivity Press2002274 pp.ISBN 1-56327-263-6£28.86 (hardcover)

This book provides a comprehensive guide for applying lean manufacturing techniques to the existing or newly designed assembly facilities. It explains how to design, set-up, and run assembly and test operations, from the logistics of part supply to the decision of assembler jobs and the organisation of assembly teams.

“Lean Assembly” comprises 16 chapters divided into four main parts. The first part addresses Analysis Techniques and contains chapters discussing Key Issues of Assembly Operations, Product Quality Analysis, Trend and Seasonality Analysis, and Takt Time and Capacity. Part 2, Assembly Concepts, discusses Visualising the Assembly Process, The Concept of the Assembly Line, Collecting Assembly Time Data, and Line Balancing.

The following six chapters provide detailed design notes for lean assembly. Chapter 9 discusses Assembly Station, while chapters 10 and 11 address Detailed Design of Assembly Stations, and Part Presentation, respectively. The remaining chapters in Part 3 discuss Conveyance Between Stations, Assembly Cells, and the Overall Shape of Assembly Lines. The final part of the book, Assembly Quality, addresses Preventing Picking Errors, and Inspection, Test and ReworkOperations.

Overall, “Lean Assembly” is a well written reference text that will be invaluable to students and professional engineers from aerospace, automotive, electronics and household appliance industries.