Mass production in engineering∗

∗The study reported here was in part supported by a Whitworth Fellowship Award.

Abstract

The primary purpose of this paper is to report the results of a survey conducted to establish the nature of the use of certain methods for mass production in the U.K. engineering industry. Prior to describing the survey we shall specify and give terminology for the methods to be included, and the aspects of mass production to be covered.

We shall deal only with mass production in the engineering industry, i.e. the manufacture of discrete items rather than fluids, raw materials, etc., and we shall be concerned only with complex items such as machined parts and assemblies. The survey therefore relates primarily to flow production methods (Wild 1972), i.e. manual assembly lines, transfer machines and automated assembly. Additionally survey data were collected relating to individual and group manual assembly methods.

Notes

∗The study reported here was in part supported by a Whitworth Fellowship Award.