ABSTRACT
This chapter provides various guidelines concerning the organization of workstations. Individual workstations of a line will tend to be smaller, but space for conveyors may increase the total. The total workstation is composed of an operator, a machine, energy and information input, energy and information output, material input, material output, input product storage, and output product storage. Buffers increase the size of input storage and output storage. Buffers at the start and end of the line can be identified as "stores," whereas in-line buffers are "refrigerators." There are two possible locations for rework: by the operator at the workstation or by a rework operator offline. In general, a rework operator at a rework station works well; the operator does not need to staff the rework station 100% of the time. The work required for a product may require more space for components, tools, and equipment than can be located conveniently at one workstation.
