One Piece Flow in Job Shop

Is there a difference in One Piece Flow concepts and implementation in a Job Shop vs Process Manufacturing? This video answers that viewer question with a mixed "no and yes": the concepts are the same, and so are most of the benefits. But in practice it's both easier and more useful for Job Shop setups.
Tasks are often more distinct in Job Shops, and because of that 'line balancing' is easier to do. One of the bigger issues in One Piece Flow, especially in Process Manufacturing, is speed/capacity difference between lines, if you really pass individual pieces (or very small batches) between unbalanced lines you'll almost surely reduce the performance of the faster line. In Job Shops redistributing tasks between operations and operators is often much easier to do, so solving this problem is much easier too.
The other main advantage of Job Shops is that they tend to have much quicker Change Overs, so Setup Time doesn't have such a big effect on smaller production runs. And you can often do certain tasks within the time one of your bigger tasks takes, if you can be flexible enough with tasks between people.
So even though Process Industry is built to improve effectiveness, in many specialised situations a Job Shop can actually be much more effective in service your customer.
#continuousimprovement #lean #jobshop
00:00 - Introduction
00:33 - Defining Job Shop in Lean Manufacturing
02:18 - Challenges in Job Shop Line Balancing
04:08 - Example: Metal Working in a Job Shop
06:00 - Benefits of One Piece Flow in Job Shops
07:50 - Managing Multistation Operations
11:16 - Balancing Work Between Stations
15:25 - Transitioning to One Piece Flow

[@solvesmith]

Great topic!!!

[@TomMentink]

Good to hear you like it. Feel free to request future video topics and/or follow-up questions 😉

[@solvesmith]

@@TomMentink I'd love to see some black belt level project selection and what makes good/bad initiates on different time scales: short term projects vs long term. Thanks for the great content!

[@TomMentink]

@@solvesmith sure, nice topic, and an important one when setting yourself up for success - it's on my future video list 😉 Thanks for the idea!