The input and output stations in the factory are not reasonable.I have to assign an input station or an output station to each raw material and product. When I only intend to produce on a small scale, i.e. one machine for each final product, I find that each station moves boxes less than once a day on average, or even less. Of course, I understand that adding more of the same kind of production line will increase the utilization of the input and output stations. But after all, the warehouse area is very limited and divided into irregular shapes by the parking spaces, the actual area utilization is not high. Even with the expansion of the production line, the utilization of each input station and output station is still very low, and the factory employees have nothing to do most of the time. Moreover, this leads to the fact that the factory is only suitable for large-scale production line layout, and is not suitable for small-scale modularized production line layout.
Is it possible to adopt the following program. Replace the existing input and output stations with input and output machines without workstations. The new input and output stations then remain as workstations for the employees, but instead of being directly connected to the machine, they can be assigned multiple input or output machines. The employee would monitor the corresponding input or output machine and then replenish raw materials to multiple input machines or take products from multiple output machines. An upper limit could be set, such as a maximum of 5 input machines assigned to each input station. This also helps with the layout, as I can place the input stations next to the shelves without having to take up space on the production line.