Tom sent this link to me, and I thought I would share it.
I can’t say much for the correspondent, but this is a decent view of a modern automobile assembly line.
The actual tour starts at around the 6:00 point.
When I look at a production line, one of the key things I am looking for is how they detect and respond to problems – both the mechanics and the strength of the problem solving culture.
I am curious to hear from any of my readers from Ford (I know you are out there).
Between minute 15 and 19 the video captures a couple of cycles for installing the radiator.
– Cycle 1: 50 sec
– Cycle 2: 47 sec
– Cycle 3: 41 sec
These variance in cycle times seem quite big to me. Or at least it provides potential for improvement – when needed. (Note: at the thrid cycle the picture fades in and out, so I am not quite sure whether the cycle time count is reliable)
I liked their team rooms with lockers, fridge, microwave, and white board. Seems like it’s lean to me, no silos there. A good place to go over ideas and improvements.
I only noticed one line stop (when they crossed the line) and I didn’t hear any audible signal. I really don’t know if they stopped the line for them to cross (unlikely) or it had stopped for another reason.
If you know anything about automotive assembly, the steps where they remove the freshly painted doors as sets and then reunite them with the exact same body further down the line was pretty interesting. It used to be that fitting a door (or any other bolt on sheet metal) was something of an art form. The fact that they can now easily bolt them back on and have them fit perfectly shows how much variation has been taken out of that operation.