Manufacturers seek customers' satisfaction by increasing products variety and customization while striving for agility and productivity. Large variations in products scope and production scale are evident. A hierarchy of parts/products variants is introduced to illustrate the propagation of variations. A unified approach that links products design to manufacturing processes, through variation-oriented data structures and planning methodologies, and capitalizes on commonalities, is presented. The use of variation assessment metrics is demonstrated. Methods for manufacturing systems design for variation are discussed. Lot-size capping is introduced to manage variations in batch sizes and product mix. A gearbox case study is used for illustration.
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