Gaining Competitiveness Trough Understanding Critical Factors Affecting the Production System : A Case study in cooperation with GKN Driveline Köping AB

Abstract: Globalization and the increasing time to market have led to ever-higher requirements on the production systems. More than often the short-term thinking and the chase for profit lead to cheap quick fixes. The manufacturing industry changes slowly while the market is changing rapidly, which requires long-term planning for capacity increase but at the same time the ability to rapidly respond to changes. The most crucial factors determining the ability to efficiently produce and deliver a product to market is the utilized production system and a well stated manufacturing strategy. The choice of a certain production system depends on company conditions and requirements as well as the market demands. The current production systems performance and ability to handle different production volumes and divergence must be considered and evaluated from an economical perspective. During this thesis work the benefits and disadvantages with batch flow and one-piece flow have been examined. Generally one-piece flow had been considered the most efficient regarding performance and economical aspects. Meanwhile, batch flow had some benefits associated to it regarding high level of flexibility to handle several different product variants and better possibilities to govern the material flow compared to one-piece flow. There has also been examined which are the most crucial factors affecting the choice between one-piece flow and batch flow. It emerged during the thesis work that the most crucial factor affecting the choice of production system was the Manufacturing Strategy. It can be considered as the ground for every decision regarding the production system and future investments. It determines where the company currently stands, where they want to be in the future and which steps they need to take to get there. The economical factor is as least as important because all decisions include more or less costly investments. At the same time the chosen production system must be as efficient as possible and generate money for the company. Based on these two main factors other interesting factors have been presented. These factors may not affect the choice as much, but are to be considered as important in this context The most crucial factors found to affect the choice of a production system were; Manufacturing Strategy, Economical factors, Production planning and control, Flexibility and capacity, Production volume, variants and trends. The research work has been conducted over a twenty-week period, during which data collection has been performed via Multiple Case Studies at four companies manufacturing similar components within the light and heavy automotive industry. Additional data collection has been performed through a literature review by examining relevant material for the research questions. This have led to a collected knowledge base regarding benefits and disadvantages with each production system along with underlying reasons for deciding on one of them. Based on the collected material from the Case Studies and the theoretical findings, a Mind map visualizing the crucial factors affecting the choice of a production system is presented. This can be utilized by the companies in order for structured evaluation of their current production system and for planning for future changes within production.