Shahram Taj - Professor of Operations Management and System optimaztion University of Detroit Mercy

This paper describes the design of a new manufacturing plant for an American automotuve company in Europe. This plant produces powertrain products for the European automotive industry. We will describe the steps taken in designing the plan. The main strategies behind the design were to design the plant according to the mission of the company and total systems optimization approach. The elements of this production system are customer, cost, ease of operations and supervision, quality, maintainability, flexibility, and fast response. The plant has been designed accoring to linked-cell layout where machining / fabrication cells are linked to assembly cells and to final customers. This linked-cell layout provides each customer with a clearly definde value stream. The plant was launched in 200 and has been very successful. We will highlight the steps. taken in designing this successful manufacturing plant that may be used by others in designing future manufacturing plants.

Lean Manufacturing Facility planning , Production system Design , Automotive industry