Owing to competitive pressure in the marketplace, a company often needs to introduce a new product in the shortest possible time. It is the easiest and least expensive way to accomplish the objective is to design a manual production method. Using a sequence of workstations operating independently. A typical automation migration strategy is the following:
Phase-1: Manual production using single stations manned cells operating independently. This is used for introduction of the new product for some reasons such as quick and low cost tooling to get started.
Phase-2: Automated production using single station automated cells operating independently. As demand for the product grows and it becomes clear that automation can be justified, then the single stations are automated to reduce labor and increase production rate. Work units are still moved between workstations manually.
Phase-3: Automated integrated production using a multi-station automated system with serial operations and automated transfer of work units between stations. When the company is certain that the product will be produced in mass quantities and for several years, then integration of the single station automated cells is warranted to further reduce labor and increase production rate.