Production flow analysis for planning group technology

Abstract Group technology (GT) is a method of organization for factories in which organizational units known as “groups” each complete a particular set or “family” of parts with no backflow, or crossflow between groups, and are equipped with all the facilities they need to do so. Production flow analysis (PFA) is a technique for planning the change to GT in existing batch and jobbing production factories. It finds a total division into groups, using the existing machines and methods to make the existing parts, without any need to buy additional machine tools. Because the change to GT is generally both possible (if PFA is used for planning) and profitable, process organization, in which organizational units specialize in particular processes, is now obsolete.