Glossary · Manufacturing systems
Production line
Also known as: Manufacturing line, Line
German: Produktionslinie
In manufacturing, a production line is a set of machines and workstations arranged in sequence, linked by material handling, through which products pass to be manufactured, assembled or packaged.
- Manufacturing systems
In one sentence
A production line is a sequence of machines and workstations linked by material handling through which products pass.
Example
The bottling production line consists of depalletizer, rinser, filler, capper, labeler, case packer and palletizer.
How it applies
- Engineering: Line design determines capacity, buffers and flexibility. Machines are often supplied by different vendors and integrated by a line integrator.
- Control: Line control coordinates start, stop and speed of the machines; standard state models such as PackML help machines from different vendors work together.
- Safety and compliance: A line built from several machines can be an assembly of machinery with its own conformity assessment. Emergency stop zones and the interfaces between machines need an overall safety concept.
- Documentation: Beyond the machine manuals, operators need line-level documentation: start-up and shutdown sequence, emergency stop zones, product changeover across machines and responsibilities.
Production line vs. work cell
A production line arranges stations in sequence with a fixed flow. A Work cell groups equipment around one or a few operations and is often more flexible in the products it handles.