Industrial Processing Equipment
There are three common types of modern industrial processing or mass production systems: the batch system, the continuous system, and the project system.
Industrial processing equipment can be (for example) the steel belt coolers used in modern food production lines, the equipment used to machine or repair disc brake systems for cars, right up to the equipment used in modern major production lines, such as Boeing’s aeroplane production line pictured at right.
Industrial processing equipment – batch and continuous processing
Batch processing refers to a given quantity of a product moved as a batch through one or more steps, with the total volume emerging simultaneously at the end of the production cycle. Examples include systems for producing specialized machine tools or heavy-duty construction equipment, specialty chemicals, and processed food products.
Continuous industrial processing refers to items being processed through a series of operations, that are common to most other products being processed. This system allows for large volumes of throughput, and often requires specially designed equipment and methods, used to drive down production costs.
Automobile engines and automobile production lines are good examples of this, along with mass production products such as televisions, washing machines, and computers.
Sometimes the two methods described above are used in tandem -
For example, in the production of electronic integrated circuits, thousands of circuits are processed as a batch on several large slices of silicon crystal through sometimes hundreds of processing steps.
One-off systems
The third type of production system is the project, or “one-off” system. For a single, custom or one-of-a-kind product, for example buildings, ships, or product prototypes for aeroplanes or large computer systems, resources are brought together only once. Because of the singular nature of project systems, special methods of management have been developed to contain the costs of production within reasonable levels.