One Piece One Flow
One piece flow is moving one workpiece at a time between a work station within a cell or shop.
One piece one flow. What is one piece flow. The word one does not necessarily have a literal meaning. In opposite conditions we might process an entire batch or lot at each station before moving it to the next station.
To think of processing one unit at a time usually sends a shudder through the organisation which has batch manufacturing as its life blood. One piece flow is a fundamental element of becoming lean. One piece flow describes the sequence of a product or transactional activities e g insurance claims through a process one unit at a time.
This system works best in combination with a cellular layout in which all necessary equipment is located within a cell in the sequence in which it is used. It should be related to the customers requirements and could be one unit of order. In contrast batch processing creates a large number of products or works on a large number of transactions at one time sending them together as a group through each operational step.
