Cellular layout production at Airline Manufacturing Co$.$ Inc.

Airline Manufacturing Co$.$ Inc. is a manufacturer of wooden components located in Columbus $($Mississippi$)$ which has a $26,000$ m$^2$ factory, which has $100$ employees and which supplies upholsterers $($sofa manufacturers$).$ By $2000,$ when Judy Dunaway took over from her father, the company had been producing in batches for $40$ years. However, the threat of competition led it to adopt lean production. Products manufactured in large quantities were identified and all those with identical production sequences were grouped into families. The machines needed for each family were allocated to a specific cell. This made it possible to reduce the volume of product stocks in progress by more than half, the number of handling trolleys was reduced from $3,000$ to $1,000$ and the number of maneuvers was reduced by half. In addition, the production time, which was four weeks, is now less than a week,