Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Production Research – Americas: Icpr Americas 2022, Fernando Deschamps,Edson Pinheiro de Lima,Sérgio E. Gouvêa da Costa,Marcelo G. Trentin, Editör, Springer Nature, Ohio, ss.614-621, 2023
The Seru Production System (SPS) is Japanese cellular production system, that originated with the needs of improvements in assembly process of electronic industry. Distinct from conventional production systems, SPS has lots of autonomous production units called as seru. In those separated production regions/areas, the efficiency of assembly line and the flexibility of workshop production are ensured together. For the achievement of SPS, that workforce in the seru is cross-trained, is considered necessary and the advanced competency levels for different operations makes significance. Employees who have the high skills to perform the tasks at different stations are important in rebalancing the lines, and these people also play a significant role with their high competencies for autonomous seru units. In this study, comparison of the throughput rates at different competency levels of workers in SPS with the conveyor assembly line is presented. To draw attention to the importance of workforce competence for the SPS, the changing skills of the employees who are competent to produce the entire product and their effects on the total production output were investigated. Study results confirm the superiority of SPS in terms of efficiency.