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REDUCING FLOW TIME IN AIRCRAFT MANUFACTURING
Author(s) -
CHAO JACKSON S.,
GRAVES STEPHEN C.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
production and operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.279
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1937-5956
pISSN - 1059-1478
DOI - 10.1111/j.1937-5956.1998.tb00437.x
Subject(s) - context (archaeology) , productivity , flow (mathematics) , process (computing) , production (economics) , computer science , work (physics) , operations management , argument (complex analysis) , operations research , industrial engineering , business , economics , microeconomics , engineering , mechanical engineering , mathematics , macroeconomics , paleontology , biochemistry , chemistry , geometry , biology , operating system
The assembly of aircraft is a labor‐intensive process that exhibits a significant learning‐curve effect and that requires long flow times and costly work‐in‐process inventories. This paper describes the production context, the cost of flow time in this context, and some of the causes for the long flow times. We then develop an argument for a firm to use improvements in labor productivity to reduce flow times. Boeing has implemented the recommendations from this research and has obtained significant benefits from reducing flow times.