From product documentation to a method prototype and standard times: A new technique for complex manual assembly

This paper suggests a new technique to facilitate consistent transition between planning and production stages of small lots of complex products (in quantities that do not justify full automation). Despite the usage of modern approaches such as design for assembly and design for manufacturing the typical product planning ends up before production planning begins, instead of having a unified seamless planning process. This paper presents a new three stage technique to fill the gap between product planning and production. The paper shows how to generate a rigorous production plan by: (1) extending the Bill-of-Materials to include additional required information, (2) constructing an assembly method prototype and (3) using the method prototype to calculate time standards for executing the assembly. A case study illustrates the proposed technique.