Assembly Line
A manufacturing process where products move sequentially through a series of workstations, with each station performing a specific assembly task. Assembly lines enable high-volume production with consistent quality by breaking complex assembly into simple, repeatable steps performed by specialized workers or machines.
RELATED TERMS
Production Line
A sequential arrangement of machines, equipment, and workers that transforms raw materials into finished products through a series of manufacturing steps. Production lines are designed to maximize throughput and efficiency for manufacturing specific products or product families.
Takt Time
The rate at which products must be completed to meet customer demand, calculated by dividing available production time by customer demand. Takt time sets the pace for production and helps balance workloads across operations to achieve smooth, synchronized flow without overproduction or shortages.
Cycle Time
The total elapsed time required to complete one unit or one cycle of a production process from start to finish. Cycle time includes processing time, wait time, and move time, and is a critical metric for capacity planning, scheduling, and identifying improvement opportunities.
Bottleneck
The operation or resource in a production process that limits overall system throughput because it has the lowest capacity or longest cycle time. Identifying and managing bottlenecks is critical because improving non-bottleneck operations does not increase total system output.