The shop floor is the production area, such as in a factory or another working space and is the floor where workers produce goods. The term "shop floor" refers to the area of a factory where production takes place. The shop floor excludes the area used or designated for administrative activities. [1] [2] [3]
A shop steward is an employee of a company or organization who, as a labor union member and official, represents and defends the interests of their coworkers. [4] During the First World War, the Shop Stewards Movement brought together shop stewards from across the United Kingdom. It began with the Clyde Workers Committee, Britain's first shop stewards committee, which organized in response to the imprisonment of three of their members in 1915. [5]
Systems for managing the various components of the manufacturing process are known as shop floor control (SFC) systems.
Shop floor control is one of the functions of manufacturing control; it is the process of monitoring the production activities as they happen, such as when the product is being processed, assembled, inspected, etc. It is also concerned with the shop floor inventories—short and excessive inventories that may cause losses. [6] [7]
The manufacturing industry is significantly impacted by technological advances such as the Internet, the Web, and intelligent agents. Changing shop floor environments and customer needs are sufficed with new kinds of shop floor control systems that are web-based shop floor control systems, also called e-shop floor or i-shop floor. [8] [9]
Automation describes a wide range of technologies that reduce human intervention in processes, mainly by predetermining decision criteria, subprocess relationships, and related actions, as well as embodying those predeterminations in machines. Automation has been achieved by various means including mechanical, hydraulic, pneumatic, electrical, electronic devices, and computers, usually in combination. Complicated systems, such as modern factories, airplanes, and ships typically use combinations of all of these techniques. The benefit of automation includes labor savings, reducing waste, savings in electricity costs, savings in material costs, and improvements to quality, accuracy, and precision.
Inventory or stock refers to the goods and materials that a business holds for the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation.
Lean manufacturing is a method of manufacturing goods aimed primarily at reducing times within the production system as well as response times from suppliers and customers. It is closely related to another concept called just-in-time manufacturing. Just-in-time manufacturing tries to match production to demand by only supplying goods that have been ordered and focus on efficiency, productivity, and reduction of "wastes" for the producer and supplier of goods. Lean manufacturing adopts the just-in-time approach and additionally focuses on reducing cycle, flow, and throughput times by further eliminating activities that do not add any value for the customer. Lean manufacturing also involves people who work outside of the manufacturing process, such as in marketing and customer service.
Kanban is a scheduling system for lean manufacturing. Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota, developed kanban to improve manufacturing efficiency. The system takes its name from the cards that track production within a factory. Kanban is also known as the Toyota nameplate system in the automotive industry.
Quality assurance (QA) is the term used in both manufacturing and service industries to describe the systematic efforts taken to assure that the product(s) delivered to customer(s) meet with the contractual and other agreed upon performance, design, reliability, and maintainability expectations of that customer. The core purpose of Quality Assurance is to prevent mistakes and defects in the development and production of both manufactured products, such as automobiles and shoes, and delivered services, such as automotive repair and athletic shoe design. Assuring quality and therefore avoiding problems and delays when delivering products or services to customers is what ISO 9000 defines as that "part of quality management focused on providing confidence that quality requirements will be fulfilled". This defect prevention aspect of quality assurance differs from the defect detection aspect of quality control and has been referred to as a shift left since it focuses on quality efforts earlier in product development and production and on avoiding defects in the first place rather than correcting them after the fact.
Manufacturingresource planning is a method for the effective planning of all resources of a manufacturing company. Ideally, it addresses operational planning in units, financial planning, and has a simulation capability to answer "what-if" questions and is an extension of closed-loop MRP.
Computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM) is the manufacturing approach of using computers to control the entire production process. This integration allows individual processes to exchange information with each part. Manufacturing can be faster and less error-prone by the integration of computers. Typically CIM relies on closed-loop control processes based on real-time input from sensors. It is also known as flexible design and manufacturing.
Operations management is concerned with designing and controlling the production of goods and services, ensuring that businesses are efficient in using resources to meet customer requirements.
Manufacturing process management (MPM) is a collection of technologies and methods used to define how products are to be manufactured. MPM differs from ERP/MRP which is used to plan the ordering of materials and other resources, set manufacturing schedules, and compile cost data.
DELMIA, a brand within Dassault Systèmes, is a software platform designed for use in manufacturing and supply chain professionals. It offers various tools encompassing digital manufacturing, operations, and supply chain management, including simulation, planning, scheduling, modeling, execution, and real-time operations management.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to manufacturing:
Cellular manufacturing is a process of manufacturing which is a subsection of just-in-time manufacturing and lean manufacturing encompassing group technology. The goal of cellular manufacturing is to move as quickly as possible, make a wide variety of similar products, while making as little waste as possible. Cellular manufacturing involves the use of multiple "cells" in an assembly line fashion. Each of these cells is composed of one or multiple different machines which accomplish a certain task. The product moves from one cell to the next, each station completing part of the manufacturing process. Often the cells are arranged in a "U-shape" design because this allows for the overseer to move less and have the ability to more readily watch over the entire process. One of the biggest advantages of cellular manufacturing is the amount of flexibility that it has. Since most of the machines are automatic, simple changes can be made very rapidly. This allows for a variety of scaling for a product, minor changes to the overall design, and in extreme cases, entirely changing the overall design. These changes, although tedious, can be accomplished extremely quickly and precisely.
Manufacturing engineering or production engineering is a branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering. Manufacturing engineering requires the ability to plan the practices of manufacturing; to research and to develop tools, processes, machines, and equipment; and to integrate the facilities and systems for producing quality products with the optimum expenditure of capital.
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integumentary systems of people, money, knowledge, information and equipment. Industrial engineering is central to manufacturing operations.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to production:
Jean-Baptiste Waldner is a French engineer, management consultant and author, known for his contributions in the fields of computer-integrated manufacturing, enterprise architecture, nanoelectronics, nanocomputers and swarm intelligence.
Industrial and production engineering (IPE) is an interdisciplinary engineering discipline that includes manufacturing technology, engineering sciences, management science, and optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations. It is concerned with the understanding and application of engineering procedures in manufacturing processes and production methods. Industrial engineering dates back all the way to the industrial revolution, initiated in 1700s by Sir Adam Smith, Henry Ford, Eli Whitney, Frank Gilbreth and Lilian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt, F.W. Taylor, etc. After the 1970s, industrial and production engineering developed worldwide and started to widely use automation and robotics. Industrial and production engineering includes three areas: Mechanical engineering, industrial engineering, and management science.
Within supply chain management and manufacturing, production control is the activity of monitoring and controlling any particular production or operation. Production control is often run from a specific control room or operations room. With inventory control and quality control, production control is one of the key functions of operations management.
A digital twin is a digital model of an intended or actual real-world physical product, system, or process that serves as the effectively indistinguishable digital counterpart of it for practical purposes, such as simulation, integration, testing, monitoring, and maintenance. The digital twin is the underlying premise for Product Lifecycle Management and exists throughout the entire lifecycle of the physical entity it represents. Since information is detailed, the digital twin representation is determined by the value-based use cases it is created to implement. The digital twin can exist before the physical entity, as for example with virtual prototyping. The use of a digital twin in the creation phase allows the intended entity's entire lifecycle to be modeled and simulated. A digital twin of an existing entity may be used in real time and regularly synchronized with the corresponding physical system.
Project production management (PPM) is the application of operations management to the delivery of capital projects. The PPM framework is based on a project as a production system view, in which a project transforms inputs into outputs.
The dictionary definition of shopfloor at Wiktionary  | This industry-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |