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Cool Tour, Inefficient Facility though Posted by Randy Thatcher [Email]  (#22)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from Randy Thatcher) on Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:16:09
In Reply to: OT: virtual tour of VW's transparent factory, Jo K, Sun, 15 Feb 2004 11:01:14 Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup |
What a terribly inefficient production facility. For the past 8 years I've been a consultant to Toyota. My team automates / implements all the Quality, Kanban, Just In Time, and Andon systems in their plants. Ask FrozenSaab (Mark) about these shops. He worked in one for a while.
I'm used to seeing roughly a 60 minute takt time. That means 1 car per minute. I've seen it as low as 57 seconds, and as high as about 4 or 5 minutes (BMW Z3/X5 plant). A new, low-volume facility I'm working on will have a 7 mintue takt time and staged parts bins like this VW shop.
The automatic storage and retrieval system is like at BMW. They stage bodies between shops and pull them in the desired order. Toyota and Mercedes do it a little different.
At any rate, here's what I can't believe...
The electric screwdrivers and torque wrenches are rechargable. Why aren't they air driven, or connected to torque controllers (Atlas Copco or equiv)? Does critical torque data get logged, or at least OK/No Good status to keep the car in station until the problem is fixed? This is called Pokayoke, or error-proofing.
A key tenant to the Toyota Production System is a quality issue is not allowed to leave the station. A worker pulls a cord that will stop the conveyor at the end of its pitch. This VW facility appears to have no such thing. The article states "The conveyor moves at a very slow pace, and there is no official time limit to get each job done." This is NOT what I'm used to seeing... GM, DCX, and many others have begun to follow this philosophy.
That spare tire intall robot had to cost 300k-500k. I guess if you want to spend cash it's OK, but a worker and a ergonomic assisting hoist would be plenty.
The automatic guided vehicles are pretty slick. I've seen those in China on an engine line. Honda uses these for the cars in the Ohio plants. They're not cheap, but full fledged conveyor systems are never cheap, either.
The light booth on the inspection line is pretty sad. Toyota and Lexus go through full light tunnels at least 5 times in the plant. A tunnel has lights on the walls, some at a 45, and the overhead lights. It drives me crazy to be in those tunnels for long.
The 5 days on the line statistic is crazy, too. That doesn't include stamping, weld, paint shops, or transit time. And I thought germans were efficient. I'm used to a day or so from rolls of steel to out on the train track.
It *IS* a sexy plant, however. Cleanest I've seen.
Randy
RAm
posted by 63.161.86...
, Sun, 15 Feb 2004 20:16:09 <-- Viewing This Message
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