Job shops are, in their nature, much more chaotic than flow shops. Previously, I have written a lot on this topic. In this post I would like to take a deeper and quantitative look at this effect. Using simulations, we take two systems and try to make them as identical as possible – except that one is a flow shop and the other is a job shop. This blog post is based on a thesis by my student Daniel Ballach.
Flow Shop
How to Convert a Job Shop into a Flow Shop – Part 2
Turning job shops into flow shops is not easy. This is my second post explaining such transformations as I try to help you in improving your shop floor from an (always) messy job shop into a much more efficient flow shop.
How to Convert a Job Shop into a Flow Shop – Part 1
Job shops are always very difficult to manage. As I described in my previous posts, the irregular material flow causes fluctuations that are very hard to contain. In my view, the only true fix for a job shop is to convert it into a flow shop. In this post I will talk a little bit about how you approach the idea of converting a job shop into a flow shop … although this is not always possible. However, in many cases it is possible to increase flow-shop-like segments, even though the whole system is still a job shop.