By: Martina Celegato
Submitted: 2009-07-06 04:07:39 | Word Count: 605
With the advent of the industrial revolution, working methods radically changed. From the early years of the twentieth century, with the use of the assembly line, modern society has changed completely, for good or evil.
But in recent decades, these concepts have undergone a major renovation, the old production methods are no longer cheap, so new concepts and new methods have been created. Now the new methods are called Just in Time, Toyotism (or Toyota Production System), industrial automation, lean manufacturing and flexible manufacturing system (FMS). These seem only names, but in fact have completely revolutionized the production processes in factories and farms. The assembly line was based on the division of labor of the workers and the use of the conveyor belt. The benefits that the industry took from it, in terms of reduction of production time and cost savings were likely to push most of the industrial companies to employ this method, which takes its name from its creator, Henry Ford .
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The just in time method is an industrial philosophy that has reversed the "old method" of producing finished goods for the warehouse waiting to be sold (system-called "push") in the "pull" system for which only what has been sold or that we expect to sell quickly should be produced. In this way, it is above all a policy of stock management, which aims to alleviate at most the stocks of raw materials and semi-finished goods needed for production. In this way, any type of industrial processing, such as editing, assembly, wave soldering, fusion, are not carried out continuously, and as much as possible, but only when there is need and in the necessary amount.
Toyotism, is a method of organizing production that aims to produce more with less, thus using less resources and raw materials and with minimum wastage. The term lean production identifies a philosophy inspired by the industrial Toyota Production System, which aims to minimize waste to annul them.
Lean principles are for example: the elimination of waste, specify precisely the value from the perspective of the customer; clearly identify the process that delivered value to the customer and eliminate steps that do not add value; produce the remaining steps that add value in a flow without interruption by organizing the interfaces between different phases; let the customer to pull the process - not to produce anything until there is a need, then deliver that quickly; to pursue perfection through continuous improvement.
The automation of factories has also allowed to function without the help of man, in an automatic machine tools through a computerized control and industrial robots for machining and handling of parts. This process was then added to the flexible automation (FMS), a system capable of automatically producing different products. This type of electronic design is one of the main characteristics of modern production systems.
These new methods are born from the need to adapt to a new economic situation, especially after the oil crisis of the 70s. they have made the production more lightweight and flexible and have increased the efficiency, but new techniques and new designs are already been experiencing. In short, there is no longer the factory with an assembly line, like in Charlie Chaplin’s movies, it is a dinosaur of the past, now those buildings are in fact rediscovered by the industrial archeology, memories of the recent past but not to forget though.
