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US 2004/0167647 A1Published application
Method of designing a manufacturing assembly line
AssigneeFord Motor Company
InventorsAbid Ghuman, James Lowe, Marsha Rosso, Kirk Sanborn
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A method of designing a manufacturing process line. A process is identified as a set of discrete steps. A subset of steps is assigned to one of a plurality of standardized work cells. The work cells include a standardized workpiece presenter and a standardized processing tool. Additional subsets of discrete steps are assigned to a standardized work cell until the design for the manufacturing process is completed.
Claims20
A method of designing a manufacturing process line, comprising:
- identifying a manufacturing process comprising a set of discrete steps to be performed on at least one workpiece;
- identifying a plurality of standardized work cells, each work cell having at least one standardized workpiece presenter that supports the workpiece in a predefined spacial orientation, and at least one standardized processing tool;
- selecting a subset of the set of discrete steps to be performed at a work cell and selecting the standardized work cell for performing the subset of steps;
- and
- repeating the selecting step for additional subsets of steps to the plurality of work cells until all of the discrete steps are assigned to one of the plurality of work cells.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.