Project Design of the manufacturing process

The beginning of the design of the production process is usually the completion of the design of the product or the receipt from the customer of a ready-made (including standard) project. Process developers take into account:

• the technical characteristics of the product as a whole and its parts;
• volume of output;
• the degree of cooperation and standardization of the component elements of the product; staged production (single, serial, mass);

When developing the process of manufacturing the product, the following are carried out:

• selection and approval of production technology and capacity;
• selection (according to the power and approved technology) of equipment, machines, tools, devices;
• selection of production personnel and its placement by workplace;
• development of detailed and stage-by-stage technical documentation necessary at workplaces during the implementation of the production process project.
• The task of designing a production process is to ensure:
• established profile and characteristics of the products manufactured at the enterprise;
• a given volume and a schedule of production output;
• reasonable production costs;
• the potential possibility of restructuring production to the production of new products and to increase the volume of its output;
• compliance with industry and cross-industry standards and regulations, including ergonomics and ecology.

Various specialists, primarily engineers and economists, are involved in the design of the production process. 

They shall have at their disposal:

• detailed working drawings and technical data of the product;
• operating conditions of the product (temperature, environment, load);
• the characteristics of the materials from which the products are made and the prices for these materials;
• a list of operating equipment available at the enterprise and its detailed technical and economic data;
• indicators of the load of existing machines and equipment by their types and individual shops and sections of the enterprise; list of additionally required equipment and its price;
• a list of available and additionally required tools and technological equipment;
• name and characteristics of vehicles;
• sources of electricity, steam, hot and cold water, compressed air, gas and other types of energy and fuel; planning of the enterprise and its workshops;
• standards for each product of the cost of materials, fuel, energy, tools, working time;
• environmental and ergonomic standards;
• other information – scientific-technical, economic, socio-political.

The design of the production process is carried out in two stages. At the first stage, a route technology is compiled, where only a list of the main operations to which the product is subjected is determined. At the same time, the development is carried out, starting with the finished product, and ends with the first production operation. The second stage provides for detailed and operational design in the opposite direction - from the first operation to the very last. 

 

This is the working documentation on which the production process is based. It describes in detail the materials from which each element and part of the product should be made, their weight, dimensions; the type and mode of processing at each production operation, the name and characteristics of equipment, tools and devices are established; the movement of the product and its constituent elements through the shops and sections of the enterprise from the first technological operation to the delivery of the product to the warehouse of finished products is indicated.

The industry profile and technical characteristics of the product are the basic information for product design. The profile determines the industry affiliation of the product, and the characteristic - its specific type. Let's say a car production is being designed. According to the profile - this is mechanical engineering, which represents one of the industries; the characteristics of the vehicle should indicate its type (cargo or passenger) and class (light-duty, heavy-duty, etc.). Profile data are very important at the strategic planning stage, when the entrepreneurial question of production, which is more profitable to develop and in which capital should be directed, is being decided.

No less important for the development of the project of the production process is the indicator of the volume of production. If the profile and characteristics of products are established, then the choice of a specific technology, equipment, tool, selection of personnel is necessarily linked to the volume of output.

With small production volumes, mainly inexpensive universal equipment, standard tools and devices are used. The maintenance scheme of the production process is largely focused on the services of third-party organizations.

In the presence of large-scale production, it becomes possible to use specialized high-performance equipment and technology, the high cost of which, thanks to high productivity, quickly pays off.

Along with this, a lot of auxiliary work at large enterprises stimulates the creation of their own service shops and sites, thereby increasing the mobility of production, reducing unit costs for production, and stabilizing quality.

The equipment, tools, methods of transportation and storage of products and their elements in the production process provided for by the project shall ensure:

• stability of product quality;
• productivity in accordance with the established production facilities and delivery times;
• availability and relative simplicity of maintenance and control of work, as well as repair and adjustment of mechanisms and tools;
• technical and organizational compatibility of the main and auxiliary operations in the production process;
• flexibility, which allows you to switch from the release of one product to another without much difficulty;
• the lowest possible costs for the production of each technological operation for these conditions.

Economic requirements are dominant and put restrictions on all other parameters of the production process. It is possible, for example, to technically ensure a multiple degree of reliability and performance of the equipment and its high flexibility, but if this requires excessive costs, then such a project will be rejected.