A simple rail system, Strothmann GmbH's RoundTrack, which enables machine manufacturers, for example, to set up production flow-lines with ease, is available in the UK, but foreign firms have already benefited. Flow-line production in the automotive industry is commonplace, but machine manufacturers, on the other hand, have not applied this to their plants, even though flow production optimises efficiency even in production processes with long assembly cycles consisting of several complex, time-consuming steps. Trumpf, Austria, for example, employs RoundTrack to move semifinished bending machines through its Pasching assembly hall (pictured). As a result, production resembles an assembly line: when one cycle is finished, the machines which are mounted on trolleys proceed to the next station along the tracks.
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