Synchronised planning and control of focused manufacturing and assembly cells

Lansing Linde Ltd. at Basingstoke specializes in the design and manufacture of battery electric powered trucks. The company has for some time been developing a short lead time facility based on focused production cells planned and controlled synchronously to satisfy actual customer orders. This paper outlines Lansing´s strategy, and consequential change in approach to production planning and control, highlighting how these tasks become simpler in a synchronous factory. This in turn leads to simpler requirements for computer systems. However, major challenges in manufacturing engineering and cultural change must first be overcome