The implementation of Manufacturing Cells in the industrial setting in Latin America: a systematic review of the literature

Abstract

The importance of the planning and distribution of machines in a plant determines the efficiency of the work and, possibly, the survival of the company, but we found that the reality of many Latin American companies is that they have within their facilities, a physical disorder of the productive elements, which leads to an inadequate use of materials and personnel, and a poor performance of their operations. Within this framework, a study was developed based on a systematic review of the "manufacturing cell". The manufacturing cell or also called work cells, is a valuable tool of Lean Production, which focuses on cellular manufacturing, characterized by a distribution of machines, where each cell can be composed of one or several different machines, which perform certain tasks associated with the manufacture of a family of products with similar characteristics, having the great opportunity for many Latin American companies to raise efficiency, working with individual cells, this would allow to manufacture parts and components with high precision and quality, and covering the needs of the market. In the present study 56 studies were collected, identifying that 59% belong to scientific articles and 41% are university theses, having as database Scielo, Proquest, EBSCO, Dialnet, Google Scholar, Engineering Source, Scopus and Renati. The review of the scientific literature concerned the industrial sector, finding the implementation of "manufacturing cells", for example, in the textile company BROOKLYN S.R.L, which achieved a decrease in unproductive time of transfer from one machine to another, generating a man-hour productivity of 16% in men's pants, and in women's models with 34% and 102% according to their classes. Another example is the one carried out in the company Ipsycom Ingenieros S.R.L., which achieved an increase in productivity in 70% of the clothing in general, in addition to improving communication between workers, reducing the time between the order and delivery, and reducing the inventory of work.