Design of an Automotive Compressor Production System Using Lean Manufacturing Design Guidelines

The design of a new production system requires a framework for ensuring that high level system objectives are satisfied by all subsystems and components. Since production system design is a multidisciplinary activity that extends beyond the boundary of any single company, a means to communicate these objectives and provide understanding to outside vendors and suppliers is also important. This paper describes both the framework and guidelines used to design a production system for a recently developed automotive compressor. The actual production system that was designed is given along with specific system and equipment examples originating from the design guidelines. These examples also show how the low level design decisions satisfied high-level system requirements.