Lathe Cell layout

[Aeroguy]

We are in the process of reorganizing the entire shop floor starting with the lathe department. The plan that the Plant manager has come up with seems to me to be a bit of a waste of space. He is arranging the machines in squares with them facing inwards towards each other. 

 

I was wondering what others ideas on machine arrangements could be more efficient.

[Colin Gilchrist]

I always start by thinking about the flow of material through the shop. Do you do mostly Lathe-only work? Do some parts get turned, then moved to the mills for finishing? Where is your loading dock and material storage?

 

Moving material around can be wasteful if not thought out beforehand. Do you saw cut blanks to length, or use a bar feeder?

 

Personally, unless you are creating a true "cell", where there are shared tools, or parts between the machines, making a square sounds like it would create issues with operator access, and possibly safety.

 

I would think two rows that face each other, so that the benches/toolboxes of each operator are back-to-back would be the best solution. That essentially gives you a single "aisle" for the operators.

 

How many Lathes are we talking? What about other equipment? Mills, saws, raw material storage, shipping/receiving, programming offices/workstations, inspection, ect.

[Mr. M]

Depends on what you are doing. 4 lathes with one operator it may not be terrible, but facing each other with two on each side may be better.

I've seen when they were spaced just enough for two operators with the benches on the end.  (Similar to what Colin said) and that works pretty nice for production

[Chris Rizzo]

Too many variables to give you an answer, but maybe some ideas. Everything that Colin said for starters. 

 

One thing that I've done that is helpful is draw a floor plan, then draw the travel of a job through the shop. Draw the travel of material. Draw the travel of people around shop to their tasks (machines, inspection, toolcrib, etc. etc.). Draw the travel of chip bins, shipping, receiving, etc etc etc.  You will have to weight what's most important, but it will give you more information to make your decision.

 

Another idea is video tape a day in the shop, and watch the flow of things. Easy to see wasted motion, inefficiencies, and hassles that could be eliminated. Also helps to garner some opinion from shop floor personnel. They may point out unforeseen pitfalls of any plan.

 

m2c

[Guest]

WHen I worked at Cummins, we video taped operators for a few days. Then looked at workflow, etc... The operator in question went from being tired every day walking about 7.5 miles per day (no exaggeration) to about 1/2 mile and feeling energetic after we worked on his area's layout. We spent about $250 (nt incuding the team labor to analyze his area) and saved the company about $120,000 in lost productivity.