The Introduction of Assembly Cells to the Clean Room of a Medical Device Manufacturer

This paper documents a case study in which a small medical device manufacturer successfully applied the ideas and concepts of cellular manufacture within its clean room. The company manufactures a range of disposable drapes for both equipment and surgery; these drapes are supplied sterile and ready for use in the operating room. Due to the nature of the products, assembly is inherently difficult to automate and equipment capable of doing so would require investment and development that the company could not afford; therefore, high levels of manual manipulation are required. At the start of the project, the organisation of these manually intensive assembly processes was left to the clean room operators and supervisor, none of whom had any form of training which related to effective design of manufacturing systems. As a result, little thought was given to the positioning of individual processes, material transfer and flow between these processes or optimal levels of staffing and equipment. The market in which the organisation is operating is highly competitive and it was recognised that for continuing success, attention had to be given to establishing efficient assembly systems. The company had little experience of modern manufacturing techniques, and looked to the academic world to provide the necessary expertise. Focusing on one product family the paper describes the knowledge transfer process, detailing techniques employed during the analysis of the value stream, the design of the cell layout, the steps taken to eliminate activities that added no value and the simulation processes that were used to determine optimal equipment and staffing levels. For a very small investment, the company has seen an increase in productivity in the assembly of the products featured in this paper of nearly 30%, a capacity increase that has eased scheduling problems, increased flexibility and the reduction of changeover time that will eventually allow smaller batches and give further productivity improvement.