General Manufacturing Terms - 1
An extension of MRP II software designed to operate on enterprise-wide computing platforms. ERP systems typically claim the ability to achieve tighter (or "seamless") integration between a greater variety of functional areas, including materials management, supply-chain management, production, sales and marketing, distribution, finance, field service, and human resources. They also provide information linkages to help companies monitor and control activities in geographically dispersed operations.
What is Enterprise Resource Planning?
A manufacturing approach in which equipment and workstations are arranged to facilitate small-lot, continuous-flow production. In a manufacturing "cell," all operations necessary to produce a component or subassembly are performed in close proximity, thus allowing for quick feedback between operators when quality problems and other issues arise. Workers in a manufacturing cell typically are cross-trained and, therefore, able to perform multiple tasks as needed.
What is Cellular Manufacturing?
The process of fabricating hollow products by forcing a hot plastic (melt) into the shape of the mold cavity by internal air pressure.
What is blow molding?
Any manufacturing process in which products are given new shapes by casting, or by some form of mechanical deformation such as forging, stamping, or bending.
What is Metal Forming?
A machine designed to remove material and produce external or internal forms by rotating a round workpiece against a stationary cutting tool.
What is Lathe?
The time elapsed from receipt of an order until the finished product is shipped to the customer.
What is customer leadtime?
A method of signaling suppliers or upstream production operations when it is time to replenish limited stocks of components or subassemblies in a just-in-time system. Originally a card system used in Japan, kanban signals now include empty containers and even electronic messages.
What is a Kanban Signal?
In plastics technology, the terms die, mold, and tool are sometimes considered the same in that they have a female or negative cavity through, or into, which a molten plastic moves under heat and pressure.
What is a Die in plastics Technology?
Metal forming machines employing a pair of mating dies which, when forced against the interposed sheet of material, impart their contour on the otherwise flat sheet.
What is Die-Forming Machines?
A machine tool that is CNC-controlled to perform a wide variety of machining operations (typically combining boring-drilling-milling tasks) automatically under the control of the part program. Machining centers have three or more axes of motion, have a contouring type numerical control and an automatic tool changer.
What is a Machining Center?
The systematic, organized improvement of processes by those who operate them, using straightforward methods of analysis. It is a "do-it-now" approach to continuous improvement.
What is a Kaizen?
A manufacturing process for rapid and flexible production of prototype parts and tooling, layer by layer, directly from a CAD model. It can create parts of any geometry, including undercuts, overhangs, and internal volumes. A thin distribution of powder is spread over the surface of a powder bed and the computer calculates the information for the layers. A binder material joins particles where the object is to be formed. A piston then lowers so that the next powder layer can be spread and selectively joined, this process is repeated until the part is completed.
What is 3-D printing?
A molding procedure in which heat-softened plastic is forced from a cylinder into a relatively cool cavity that gives the item the desired shape.
What is Injection Molding?
The use of liquid pressure to mold material. In metal forming, the fluid pressure is used to actuate the ram for both open- and closed-die forging. In plastic molding, the molding force is created by the pressure exerted by the fluid material itself.
What is Hydro-Forming?
An operation designed to remove material using a rotating cutter which is also moved laterally with respect to the workpiece.
What is Milling?
The time of actual production from when a customer order is released to the plant floor for a particular product through to the completion of all manufacturing, assembly, and testing for that specific product. (Does not include front-end order-entry time or engineering time spent on customized configuration of nonstandard items, or time in finished goods inventory.)
What is manufacturing cycle time?
The speedy fabrication of sample parts for demonstration, evaluation, or testing. It typically utilizes advanced layer manufacturing technologies that can quickly generate complex three-dimensional objects directly from computer-based models devised by Computer Aided Design (CAD). This computer representation is sliced into two-dimensional layers, whose descriptions are sent to the fabrication equipment to build the part layer by layer. Rapid prototyping includes many different fabrication technologies
What is Rapid Prototyping?
Any process that forms thermoplastic sheet by heating the sheet and forcing it onto the mold surface by vacuum or air pressure, mechanical means, or a combination of both.
What is Thermoforming?
Machines having a stationary bed and a slide (ram) which has a controlled reciprocating motion toward and away from the bed surface and perpendicular to it. They are used to form and/or shear the workpiece (usually from flat sheet).
What are Presses?
The operation of revolving a piece of round stock held in a chuck, between centers, or mounted on a faceplate against a stationary cutting tool, to create a cylindrical shape.
A system for controlling work flow and priorities whereby the processes needing materials (or attention) draw them from the feeding processes or storage areas as needed, typically using "kanban" signals -- in contrast to "push" systems in which material is processed, then pushed to the next stage whether or not it is really needed.
What is a pull-system?
Implementation of "just-in-time" techniques to reduce lot sizes, reduce setup times, slash work-in-process inventory, reduce waste, minimize non-value-added activities, improve throughput, and reduce manufacturing cycle time. JIT production typically involves use of "pull" signals to initiate production activity, in contrast to work-order ("push") systems in which production scheduling typically is based on forecasted demand rather than actual orders. In many pull systems, a customer order/shipment date triggers final assembly, which in turn forces replenishment of component WIP inventory at upstream stages of production.
What is JIT/continuous-flow production?
The compacting and forcing of heated plastic material through a shaping orifice (a die) in one continuous flow.
What is plastic extrusion?
A continuous process of feeding metal sheet, strip, or coiled stock, between successive pairs of rolls that progressively shape it until the desired cross section is produced.
What is roll forming?
A process that uses a high velocity jet of ionized gas that is delivered from a constricting orifice. The high velocity ionized gas conducts electricity from the torch of the cutter to the work piece.
What is Plasma Cutting?