Zhe Lin’s Reflection on Reading 2: Manufacturing systems and strategies

This passage is about the manufacturing systems and strategies. It involves different types of manufacturing systems, components of manufacturing systems and approaches and strategies which are more philosophical.

From this passage, I have a basic understanding of modern manufacturing. We can choose different types of manufacturing systems during our needs, such as the amount of products and the flexibility of products. For example, the job shop is designed for small production quantities. People and equipment there are employed flexibly. The products are always unique, so users can produce experimental product in job shop. However, the time costs and money costs can be very high, which is not suitable for high-volume production. In order to produce a good deal of products, the producer had better use flow shop, transfer line or flexible manufacturing cell. There are also some combinations of these manufacturing systems.

I found what has the closest relationship with this course is the introduction of different types of robots. We are using articulated robot, which are highly maneuverable. There are also many other types of robots being used in manufacturing system. They have different characteristics, such as the area which they can reach, way of movement, flexibility, and speed. They are chosen according to our needs too, like manufacturing systems. We should understand the differences between the robotics and manufacturing systems and choose one according to our needs.

At last, this passage also tells about manufacturing philosophies and attitudes, such as Just-in-Time, lean manufacturing, total quality management program. These strategies are combined with the manufacturing systems. These strategies help reduce the costs in manufacturing systems and improve the quality of products. These strategies are widely used in industrial field and let me get a glimpse of the actual producing process.