GCSE / Level 2 Revision Notes

Production & operations - Cell production

Cell production has the flow production line split into a number of self-contained units. Each team or ‘cell’ is responsible for a significant part of the finished article and, rather than each person only carrying out only one very specific task, team members are skilled at a number of roles, so it provides a means for job rotation.

Cell production is a form of team working and helps ensure worker commitment, as each cell is responsible for a complete unit of work.

Amongst the benefits claimed for cell production are:

• Closeness of cell members should improve communication, avoiding confusion arising from misunderstood or non-received messages
• Workers become multi-skilled and more adaptable to the future needs of a business
• Greater worker motivation, arising from variety of work, team working and more responsibility
• Quality improvements as each cell has ‘ownership’ for quality on its area

Some of the downsides of using cell production include:

• The business culture has to encourage trust and participation, or workers can feel that they are being constantly pushed for more and more output with no respite
• The company may have to invest in new systems suitable for cell production
• Cell production may not allow a firm to use its machinery as intensively as in traditional flow production