ABSTRACT
Production Flow Analysis (PFA) provides an effective framework for analyzing the material flows at different levels of resolution in a factory. Historically, the four stages of PFA were implemented manually. That limited the detection and elimination of many instances of chaotic material flows in the existing factory. Therefore, PFAST (Production Flow Analysis and Simplification Toolkit (PFAST) was developed to implement a variety of computer algorithms (Figure 6.1) that help to partially automate the manual PFA methods. Thereby, the implementation of PFA can be done for large datasets in significantly shorter periods of time. Most of the algorithms in PFAST are versatile, and can be used to automate different stages of PFA, as shown in Table 6.1. Essentially, PFAST is an academic software that combines algorithms implemented in (i) facility layout software like FactoryFLOW (https://www.plm.automation.siemens.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.plm.automation.siemens.com) and Flow Planner (https://www.proplanner.com/en/products/flow_planner/" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.proplanner.com/en/products/flow_planner/) and (ii) statistical analysis software like SAS (https://www.SAS.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.SAS.com) and Minitab (https://www.Minitab.com" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">www.Minitab.com). For example, if you Google “Cluster Analysis Freeware”, you will find software available online that is equivalent to two of the PR Analysis (Product-Routing Analysis) modules in PFAST – PR Analysis I and PR Analysis II – that help to determine the machine groups and part families to form manufacturing cells.
