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6341560 
Journal Article 
Production flow analysis—Cases from manufacturing and service industry 
Hameri, AP 
2011 
Yes 
International Journal of Production Economics
ISSN: 0925-5273 
Elsevier 
129 
2 
233-241 
WOS:000286704400001 
Production flow analysis (PFA) is a well-established methodology used for transforming traditional functional layout into product-oriented layout. The method uses part routings to find natural clusters of workstations forming production cells able to complete parts and components swiftly with simplified material flow. Once implemented, the scheduling system is based on period batch control aiming to establish fixed planning, production and delivery cycles for the whole production unit. PFA is traditionally applied to job-shops with functional layouts, and after reorganization within groups lead times reduce, quality improves and motivation among personnel improves. Several papers have documented this, yet no research has studied its application to service operations management. This paper aims to show that PFA can well be applied not only to job-shop and assembly operations, but also to back-office and service processes with real cases. The cases clearly show that PFA reduces non-value adding operations, introduces flow by evening out bottlenecks and diminishes process variability, all of which contribute to efficient operations management. 
Production flow analysis; Service industry; Cellular production; Functional layout; Product layout; Operations management 
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