OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT

Technological Change and Robotics at Fiat, 1972-1990

Technological Change and Robotics at Fiat, 1972-1990

What do we mean by product-mix flexibility and what is the relationship between product mix flexibility and capacity utilisation?

In order to approach a definition of flexible production one can link it to the field of manufacturing, which allows manufacturing a wide variety of products at different volumes and very low cost. The need to develop production systems that could be adapted to demand a market with great uncertainty and ever-changing tastes in terms of orders, all this contributes to pursue the goal of production flexibility. To meet market demands in a variable, the industries that have traditionally produced extensive series (all the same products), companies have become very large, but compact series. For this reason, the machines in series or specialized lines could not be the only solution, since this configuration was very hard equipment, served only to a part or product, and it could not be reused again after demand ceased article. This meant that production costs were very high when introducing a new product. On the other hand, the monotonous line work challenged by diseases that generate this work done.

Production-mix flexibility, explained as the capacity, to modify or to respond to transformation (Upton, 1994, Pp. 72-89), has recognized it as an imperative manufacturing aim in an oganization's prodcution/assembly strategy (Mills et al., 1995, Pp. 17-49; Wheelwright, 1978, Pp. 57-66). Its importance linked to the view that manufacturing flexibility provides the ability to deal with change stemming from the high levels of uncertainty and variety that are common in today's business environments (Beach et al., 2000, Pp. 41-57; de Groote, 1994, Pp. 933-45).

In this context, contrasting views observed that tend to seek greater production flexibility in product volume and product lines, these consist of the following:

Product flexibility: A company is more flexible if it produces a greater variety of products.

Volume Flexibility: It is to get different volumes of production, increasing or decreasing the speed of production line.

Flexibility of production lines: It comes to distributing workers and machines so as to provide maximum adaptation to new products. The machines designed for very rapid changes useful and flexible workers trained to handle multiple machines and processes.

Moreover, the flexibility also has addressed the design, which determined by the system's ability to make changes in product mix, the design of existing products or creating new products in an organization. Production capacity is the maximum possible output of products of industrial units (industries, businesses, its affiliated companies or a job) for a certain period. The relationship between product-mix flexibility determined by the degree of capacity utilization, which is the relationship between total production and the actual achievable volume of production if a company works at full capacity. In motor vehicles manufacturing context production, done/maximum production capacity includes utilization of installed capacity in the carmakers production line.

What were the innovative features of the Robogate technology?

RoboGate is the name of a flexible system and fully ...