Group Technology (GT) is a multi-faceted approach to batch production that includes the reconfiguration of plant equipment from a functional layout to a series of product-oriented layouts that are referred to as manufacturing cells. The cells are dedicated to process families of parts that have similar machine operations. The purported benefits of GT over traditional functional layouts range from reduced work-in-process inventory and throughput times to increased worker satisfaction and productivity. However, recent simulation studies challenge some of these claims of superior performance for cellular layouts. This research examines the influence that factors in a firm's operating environment have on the performance of cellular layouts. A simulation model using hypothetical shop data is used to compare a process layout to a cellular layout using mean throughput time and mean level of work-in-process inventory as performance measures. The operating variables analyzed are (1) the ratio of setup to process time, (2) transfer time of material between work centers, (3) demand stability, and (4) the flow of work within cells. None of the individual changes in levels of operating variables produced a clear advantage for cellular layouts. However, the results from these experiments were used to postulate an "ideal" environment for cellular layouts. This environment is characterized as having a high ratio of setup to process time, stable demand, unidirectional flow of work within a cell, and a substantial level of material movement times between process departments. When all of these conditions are present, the cellular layout outperforms the process layout on both performance measures.group technology, plant design, simulation

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Today, product-oriented businesses focus on shortening the time to market, reducing costs and increasing product quality in the design and manufacture of new products. Quality function deployment (QFD) is one means to achieving these product development objectives. Central to the QFD process is the voice of the customer to drive design. Cross-functional product teams consisting of design engineers, operations management experts, and marketing researchers work closely to ensure that the customers' needs are included in the design process. The House of Quality exercise described in this article represents the initial step in the QFD process and emphasizes marketing's role in the voice of the customer research.Quality function deployment (QFD) is changing the way that products are designed, produced, and marketed. The QFD methodology consists of a set of tools for building the voice of the customer into product designs. It is a team tool that captures customer requirements and translates those needs into characteristics about a product or service. Initially developed at the Kobe, Japan, shipyards in 1966 by Akao, QFD was used to get engineers to consider quality early in the design process. Gradually, as QFD techniques were improved on, the Japanese automobile industry adopted the process to reduce development time. The results included fewer change orders after production, thereby reducing costs while product quality was improved (Hales, Lyman, and Norman 1998). In the early 1990s and after much study of Japanese product design practices, QFD techniques were adopted by U.S. firms to reduce time to market, decrease costs of design and manufacture, and increase overall product quality (King 1987). Today's successful product-oriented companies are focusing on these three main goals to improve their competitive advantage. As more American industries adopt QFD techniques, it is time to examine how marketing students are taught to think about product design.QFD actually is a four-phase approach in which the product development team deploys customer requirements into product characteristics, product characteristics into part characteristics, part characteristics into process characteristics, and finally process characteristics into production characteristics (Hales et al. 1998). QFD uses four "houses" to present data in the product design process (see Figure 1). The key element in QFD is the voice of the customer to provide products and services that are more readily accepted by the marketplace. The first house links customer needs to product characteristics, which are engineering measures of product performance. The second house links these product characteristics to steps (i.e., parts characteristics) that the firm can take to improve design. The third house links actions to implementation decisions that affect manufacturing process operations, and the final house links the implementation to production planning. The first house is referred to as the House of Quality (HOQ) and is the initial effort in any product design ...

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