Planning the Introduction of Group Technology Available to Purchase

A large multi‐national Engineering company, with production facilities in the UK, recently undertook a study into the possibility of using Group Technology in a proposed “focused factory” for the manufacture of transmission gears and shafts. This paper briefly describes the reasons for considering this type of change. It also describes the methods used to predict the likely benefits in comparison with conventional forms of organisation and to plan the machine groups and part families for Group Technology.