There are "material flow" and "information flow" when considering the "Flows" regarding Production. The following section explains the "Material Flow: Transfer" and associated LCA.

(1) What is Transfer?

Materials, parts, and semi-finished products being moved with locational changes applied is the state of "Transfer". Dedicated units are called Material Handling machines. For one-person assembly cell unit production schemes, manual moving of materials corresponds to this and supportive LCA is also required.

(2) What is Transfer?

Importance of the LCA in Transfer are listed below.

1. Necessary for almost all production lines.

No single production line completes everything from start to finish in one process.

2. One transfer mechanism needed for every product variety.

Subjects to be transferred will vary in shape, weight, and properties (solids, powder, fluids)

3. Significant effects on the entire layout.

The entire line layout is almost determined by how the transfer mechanisms are arranged.
On the other hand, inappropriate transfer scheme will cause the following issues.
* Losses in investments * Losses in space * Losses in flexibility * Increase in failure rate

(3) Things that designers should consider.

In factory automation schemes, machining operations tend to be handled by machining centers where multiple machining processes are performed with one process station in order to save transfer equipment layout space as well as reducing transfer time.
However, giving the multi-process capabilities to the machines also increases complexity, propriety, and cost, so system optimization by applying transfer units based on LCA concepts.
The transfer LCA for cellular manufacturing schemes need to be designed with human engineering viewpoints.

Matter to be considered by the designers for both cases.