Produktionssystem : Utformning av verkstadslayouter med avseende på Lean Production

Abstract: The industrial environment and customers are requiring more focus on innovation and uniqueness. Due to these requirements, companies with industrial production strive for shorter lead times and high quality products in order to become more competitive. Lean Production is a philosophy concerning the optimal use of resources and it is this mindset that this bachelor thesis lays the greatest emphasis on. Lean acts as principles and guidelines relating to the establishment, development and design of efficient layouts for production systems in order to construct these to become more resource efficient and reduce the time the product is in production. This bachelor thesis aims to describe and identify the methods and layout design methodologies which serve as the base for chosen industrial companies to successfully achieve Lean Production for production systems, and if these methods are consistent with theoretical planning and design process. A common feature of the interviewed companies regarding their production systems has been made clear which is that they consider their production systems to be lean if they are presented as line flows. The reason for this is that their layouts optimize surface use, make production systems more perspicuous and reduce buffers. There is great variation between the companies regarding their progress with the implementation of Lean Production. The key success factor for implementing the philosophy is the wish to apply the mindset to an even greater extent in order to improve production efficiency. In most companies, this means in the long run, they will develop and introduce their own versions of Lean Production that is tailored for their own operations.Mental planning process, layout simulations in 3D and flow simulations are tools that are regularly used for the design of the layout in order to optimize the layout of the production system. Due to lack of documentation of the mental process, no generalized and standardized templates have been created. A routine of documentation would lead to more reference guides and outlines that simplify changes in layouts, and it would have distinctive similarities to the theoretical planning and design process.