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| WHAT IS A PRODUCTION LINE? | |
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Many products are
manufactured and assembled on a production line. Before the introduction
of computer control and robots production lines were operated by people.
Each person would carry out a limited number of tasks or even just one
task and the product would then be passed down the production line to the
next person. This would continue until the product was completely
assembled. Some modern production lines still operate in the same way whilst others rely on robots and computer control or a combination of people and machines. |
| The example production line seen below has been simplified. This production line is for the assembly of a bicycle (seen above). As the bicycle frame travels down the production line each person at a workstation workstation has a specific task to carry out ( see below). | |
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| ADVANTAGES: A production line
is a very efficient way of manufacturing and assembling a product. A car
is composed of thousands of components and yet hundreds of cars roll of
the production line of a typical car plant every day. If each car was to
be assembled by a group of individuals in a garage rather than on a
production line it could take months to produce just one. DISADVANTAGES: However, the workers on production lines often complain that little skill or training is required to complete their individual tasks and that working on a production line is extremely boring and unfulfilling. Workers often see their task as not being very important as they are just producing one small part of a larger product made up of thousands of components. |
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The link below, takes you to a five-minute video showing how the Tesla Model S is manufactured. |
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