Differentiate between traditional factories and flexible factories.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

As the name implies, flexible factories provide more production options and a greater variety of products. They differ from traditional factories in three primary ways:

1.    The traditional factory has long production runs, generating high volumes of a standardized product. Flexible factories have much shorter production runs, with many different products.
2.    Traditional factories move parts down the line from one location in the production sequence to the next. Flexible factories are organized around products, in work cells or teams, so that people work closely together and parts move shorter distances with shorter or no delays.
3.    Traditional factories use centralized scheduling, which is time-consuming, inaccurate, and slow to adapt to changes. Flexible factories use local or decentralized scheduling, in which decisions are made on the shop floor by the people doing the work.