Assembly Systems

Assembly Systems The first modern version of an assembly system is the moving assembly line introduced by Henry Ford in 1913 at Highland Park, Michigan for producing the Model T automobiles. Prior to the introduction of the assembly line, cars were individually crafted by a group of workers in fixed locations. The process was slow and expensive. The moving assembly line where the cars came to the worker who performed the same tasks again and again was able to significantly improve the speed and reduce the cost of assembly (Henry Ford 1908). An important principle that enabled the moving assembly line is “interchangeability,” where individual parts made in large volumes but controlled within tolerance can be assembled in a random order to desired specification and performance (Fig. 3) (Table 1). The assembly systems introduced by Henry Ford were effective for high-volume production of a single product type with dedicated machines and material handling systems. To respond to the changing market and increasing variety desired by the consumers, more flexible assembly systems have been introduced. Such flexible systems use all purpose machines or robots to handle a variety of tasks in a station associated with the multiple product types. In addition, the assembly systems have also taken on more complex, non-serial configurations (Hu et al. 2011).