Group Technology Applications in Shipboard Piping System Manufacture

摘要

Shipbuilding in the United States is examined in the context of its productivity problem and the possible solutions offered by modern shipbuilding techniques. Specifically, group technology is applied to naval shipboard piping systems. A nine digit code is developed to identify pipe assembly manufacturing attributes, with emphasis placed on utilization of the code for workload; balancing and reduction of setup time. Use of the code for rudimentary shop routing is also discussed. The code is shown to serve as an excellent means of organizing pipe assembly information into a usable data base. FFG-7 pipe assembly statistics are used as the basis for a quantitative analysis of pipe shop work processes. Incomplete data limits the ability to conduct accurate workload balancing forecasts at the present time. Use of the coding scheme would help to fill that gap because of its inherent work content estimating capability; however, additional data is also needed in order to develop a more accurate manhour requirement algorithm. (Author)