An Idea of the Continuous Flow for Concurrent Multi-Assortment Production

Abstract

Nowadays in the era of advanced stage of Lean Manufacturing concept forces manufacturers to research of new idea of the production flow organization and to implement more and more innovative organizational solutions. The article presents the authors concept of implementation the combination of continuous flow and concurrent multi assortment production. Continuous flow is an approach to discrete manufacturing that contrast with batch production and is associated with just-in-time and Kanban production. The goal is an optimal balanced line. The paradigm aim is to achieve single-piece flow. For this purpose the similarity of the products that use the shared resources and start their production one by one in a predetermined sequence is searched. In addition, it is recommended to transform the internal setup into external one for eliminating investment in set-up times. This concept is similar to the group technology developed down in 70’s and based on the classification of products into four groups.