Determining Capacity in a manufacturing "cell"

[BAMTech]

I've recently been tasked to help understand our true capacitance of our moly-manufacturing cell. This consists of a few horizontal and vertical CNC machines. I'm relatively new dipping my toes in the role as Manufacturing Engineer, besides logging setup times and run rates per piece and per batch is there any literature I could browse through that would give me a bit deeper understanding of what I should look for. Thank you

 

[BillPSU]

Defining what is meant by true capacitance would be the first question I would ask. Is this group of machines making multiple parts for a single assembly, multiple parts for multiple assemblies, a single part, or is it something totally different? Is there a precedence of the order of manufacturing, parts moving from one machine to another?

You will have to totally understand what is the overall process. Do the machines run 1 shift per day or 24/7. What limits capacity, man or machine? Get your arms around the complete process and understand it.

 

[MikeHalloran]

I don't know what 'capacitance' means in the context of a machining cell.

The word 'capacity', in that context, means the maximum production rate, in some standard unit, after accounting for downtime to change tools, to change shifts, to change coolant, to overhaul spindles, whatever.

Units might include number of (some standard part) per hour, day, or month, or the same for some specified mix of custom parts, or the achieved Metal Removal Rate expressed as volume of specified material per unit time, or something like that.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA